End Game
by Meridian1
Summary: Everyone knows the war never ends. (post-Blade: Trinity)
1. Aftershocks

Title: End Game

Author: Meridian

Spoilers: All the _Blade _films, right on through the end of _Blade: Trinity_

Notes: Surprisingly, with the exception of Jessica Biel, the Nightstalkers introduced in _Blade: Trinity_ were a pretty average bunch. None had super-human strength that matched Blade's or those of vampires in general, and the group suffered some pretty heavy losses that it is easy to imagine would be typical of a group of humans attempting to take out immortals. Again, setting aside the inexplicably strong Abigail Whistler character, I would say the Nightstalkers were admirably human in their tactics-not facing the vampires head on most of the time, just strategically retreating after achieving a small victory, or else launching surprise attacks on unsuspecting vampires, usually ones of a lower order. As such, they are vulnerable, and, from a dramatic point of view, more interesting than inordinately powerful humans or even another set of human/vampire hybrids. This story picks up where_ Blade: Trinity_ left off, following the titular movie hero's reinforcements.

* * *

Abby started, entire body seizing with surprise. One leg kicked backward with the spasm. Behind her, King grunted and turned over onto his back. _Figures_, she groused, mentally. He could sleep through anything. Adrenaline coursed and receded as she tried to make out what had woken her.

"Abby?"

"_Zoe_," she breathed out with relief and flicked on a lamp beside the bed. On cue, the little girl padded over from the doorway and threw herself into Abby's open arms. "Bad dream?" Zoe nodded and burrowed deeper into her embrace. "About your mom?"

"Mm-hmm," Zoe sniffed.

"Okay," Abby said, simply. There wasn't any other comfort she could offer. Zoe pretty much had a handle on her loss, at least as far as Abby could see. Zoe had never been an average child; her mother had taught her to be more. Now, Sommerfield was gone, and Zoe had her and King. It would take a while before she warmed to Caulder or his group.

"You know your mother went to Heaven, right?"

Zoe nodded. _Good_, she took a deep, calming breath. Personally, she didn't believe one way or the other, but for as long as Zoe needed to know that there was a Heaven, so she would continue to live her life unafraid, Abby would tell her there was one.

King snorted beside them, blinking up at the darkness before he focused on the pair. He sat up when he saw Zoe. "Hey, rugrat."

"Hi," Zoe mumbled struggling out of Abby's arms to launch herself into King's. It was amazing, the corrosively adorable effect Zoe could have on even on a sarcastically vitriolic personality like King's.

He hugged her hard once. "You okay?"

"Bad dream," Abby filled in.

"That's too bad," he made a show of difficult calculation, "that was three nights in a row you went. A new record, kiddo." Zoe smiled, sniffling. King grinned at her and fell back onto the pillows. "Okay, ladies, assume the position." Abby flashed Zoe a comforting smile and lay down next to King on her side. Zoe required no prompting; she immediately nestled into the space between them, shrugging and kicking to get under the covers.

"Better?" Abby watched Zoe curl up comfortably.

"Mm-hmm," she nodded and yawned. Abby waited for an extra five minutes after she was certain Zoe was asleep to hazard a look up at King. His eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling.

"You're a big softie, King."

"That might hurt my desperate loner reputation around here, so keep it to yourself, would you?"

Abby pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. If it weren't for his mouth, she might actually love him.


	2. Cleaning Up the Mess

"There," Alyssa tapped on the grid. "We figure that's the last shelter that was under the Talos' control."

Abby folded her arms, frowning. The Talos empire was rather extensive. The windfall from taking down Danica and Asher might be upwards of several million. It should have made her happy, to liquidate their assets and absorb it into the Nightstalker budget, but it didn't. Knowing how much one coven of vampires controlled was depressing, no matter who ended up with the cash at the end. It just made her imagine what untold billions they probably had altogether. What were a few millions against that?

"How soon until we have it?" She directed the question at Gidge.

"Tomorrow, if we clean it out tonight," Gidge called without looking away from his computers.

"Anything to indicate this is something more than a tomb?"

"Not a plant, if that's what you're thinking," Alyssa shook her head. A tomb was a vampire safe house, for holing up and waiting out after a disaster. A fairly recent invention, seeing as they'd ruled unseen for centuries and few people believed they existed. 'Plant' was the rather oversimplified euphemism for a harvest facility; any more specific term than that woke horror in Abby's gut. Aside from Blade, she was the only hunter who'd ever actually seen one.

"We're sure this belongs to Danica Talos? I don't want to go in there and find a new vampire trying to step into her shoes."

"No one's moved on the Talos accounts," Gidge said, again without taking his eyes away from his screens. "They might not even know yet."

"It's been a week and a half. Someone has to know. About the plant we shut down, at least," Abby thought aloud.

"Maybe they're moving slowly, waiting for the hunters to move on out of the area."

"They have to know we'll raid the accounts if they don't get here fast."

"Not if they think it was Blade," King entered the room, Zoë riding piggyback. "They're pretty shit-scared of that guy." He caught Zoë's eyes over his shoulder, "You didn't hear that." Zoë grinned, King continued, "Not that I blame them."

"Drake's stunt won't stay a secret long," Caulder reminded them. "If they believe the initial reports from the FBI about Blade's demise, they might already be moving in."

"Unless they're scared off by the vampire granddaddy taking a permanent dust nap," King suggested.

"So, we don't know which version of the official reports they're working on. It doesn't matter," Abby waved that train of thought aside. "We have to clear out the Talos holdings _now_ either way. We'll need the capital to continue pursuit."

"I've got Fox and Stone scouting the bay area up north for any spots. L.A.'s not cleaned out by any means, but we risk the other groups if we prey too much in this spot," Alyssa tapped on the map spread out on the table. "There've been some unexplained disappearances of surfers, wind-boarders, kite-boarders. So far, the city thinks it's related to the explosive reproductive season among the sea lions there."  
"They're blaming the deaths on sharks?"

"Looks like," Alyssa confirmed. "When Fox gets back to me, we'll consider a move. Right now, she's going to contact the group in Oakland, see what they've got, if it merits a visit."

"What about the Sacramento problem?" Abby reached over to drop a newspaper over the map. One of the smaller front-page headlines from _The Sacramento Bee_ read _"Prominent Doctor Abducted, Car Found Abandoned off Rte. 80"_.

"Most likely related to plants in the area or in general. We're going to have to place that on the back-burner for now."

"What sense does that make? If we hit their food supply, they go back to feeding one at a time. It exposes them more. Easier to find them."

"Actually," Gidge interrupted, "San Francisco's a bigger center for research-related plant activity. If they snatch the people they need elsewhere, I'd bet most of them end up in the Bay. More materials at hand that can't be moved."

"People carry-on. No checking, no waiting," King deadpanned, but he wasn't wrong.

"Exactly. Find out where they're going, find a city that has the technical know-how and the rotating tourist population to make a good source of raw material, and you've got your plants and your covens all in one."

Abby, grudgingly, had to concede that this plan made sense. Still, the doctor abducted near Sacramento was the third from that county; someone was working that area over for talent. Maybe it was just to distract and draw attention away from San Francisco. They were getting into double- and triple-feints, here. The stories about missing water sports enthusiasts was almost too blatant to be an accident, but maybe that's what the vampires wanted—make the story so ridiculously obvious that they would overlook as a ploy what was the heart of the operation. Damn it. It was so much easier to just put out bait in dark corners and see who bit.

There was a general consensus, achieved through nods and significant glances, around the room about the next move. Except for Abby, who passed her thoughts to King when she caught his eye through an absence of any perceivable reaction. He blinked, a sign of acknowledgment. Tonight, they cleared out the last Talos holdover in L.A. Gidge would clean up the financials, then it was off to San Fran.

Alyssa and Caulder cleared out, the former observing Gidge's workstation and his various piles of printouts, the latter out to the workshop on the warehouse floor. Firmly, Abby dismissed anticipatory excitement and adrenaline, steadily walking over to muss Zoë's hair affectionately.

"How'd you do, Zoë?"

"150!" Zoë exclaimed, happily.

"Total?"

"Yep."

"How many darts?"

"Three!"

"You're going to be out-shooting me any day now," Abby grinned at her.

"Not me, though," King mock-pouted. Zoë grasped him about the neck tighter. "Ack…kiddo…not…okay, okay, I give." Zoë relented. "_Maybe_ you can shoot better than me. Maybe, and that's all you get. Here," he shifted Zoë around, and Abigail held out her arms to take her. King collapsed onto a stool with a dramatic sigh. "Jesus, kid, you're heavy."

"No, I'm not," Zoë said, straight-faced, "you're just weak." Zoë promptly jumped down from Abby's arms and went over to play with Gidge's computers, ignoring the wounded gasps King made. Abby raised an eyebrow at him.

"What is it about me that I attract this kind of woman?"

"You invite trouble, King."

"Is _that_ an invitation?" If he'd smirked, she might have slapped him. Good thing King had mastered the blank, _can-you-tell-if-I'm-being-sarcastic?_ expression.

"You're on. Pistols at dusk."

"I'll be there."


	3. Dust to Dust

"What's the time?"

"We've got time," King answered, leaning over her and letting off a volley. "May I ask," he growled, expelling one clip and slamming another into place, "who designs warehouses full of blind corners?" An answering series of shots slammed into the boxes by his head. The contents of the box, jars and jars of a clear white substance, began to trickle out. "Shit, this stuff stinks."

"It's formaldehyde, try not to get any on you," Abby covered her nose with her free hand. It wasn't much use to say 'don't breathe it;' for one, she doubted either of them would live long enough to have to worry about possible carcinogenic effects, and, for two, there wasn't much they could do to keep from being dowsed in fumes.

"They use that on cadavers, right?" King backed away from the stream, edging around the opposite corner of the aisle they were in, stopping and cautiously peering past the edge when he reached it. "Clear." She backed up with him, rounding the corner.

"Yeah, it's a preservative. Don't know why the suck-heads want it. It won't make them last any longer."

"Maybe they're not using it on themselves."

A shot rang out, King ducked as a vampire or a familiar—too far away to see—shot at them with a semi-automatic from a gangway. Abby cocked her new toy: a wrist-mounted auto-loading crossbow, and loosed a short burst of silver-tipped arrows. Across the warehouse, a bright flame burst out in the space where the shooter had been.

"That's three."

"I count at least five more from the security feed," King adjusted the dials on his pistol; his new gear included the camera from his old weapon, with a couple of new features provided by Gidge: an LCD and UHF monitoring capabilities. King could swap between the various cameras mounted overhead and in the offices to track who was left. "One, two definite familiars. Ooh," he winced and looked expectantly over the corner down the rows, winked at her, "bad shoes."

A familiar ran headlong into view. King leveled and shot, hitting high and left in the chest. The man toppled, tripping in his nice dress loafers, sending his weapon flying; Abby shot a bolt through the barrel of the gun just to be sure. He wouldn't be using that one, and King's round wasn't fatal. They could save him for later.

"Next?"

"There," King pointed, and Abby swiveled and aimed. Another familiar appeared, exiting a door above their position on the steel walkway. She dropped him, cursing as the bolt ripped through his skull; she'd been trying for the vertebrae at the back—instant paralysis.

"Better luck next time, and get ready, 'cause you're getting your chance," King gave her the heads-up.

"Where?"

"Opposite end, coming at us from above." King checked the feed again, whistled. "And he is _flying_."

"Got it." Abby reached behind her and banged her fist against her quiver. A compartment opened, and a small round object fell into her open palm. A quick twist, back and forth once, then she lobbed it upwards. "Blink!" She screamed, closing her eyes and turning away when the light exploded above them. Ash rained down. "That's six."

"Move," King nodded, "take the right, I'll take the left."

"Vamps?"

"Can't tell. Flash burned out the receivers." He glanced up. "We're blind up top. Be careful." They knocked fists and separated, King jogging, Abby sprinting, bent over at the waist, presenting a low target. She moved down the last aisle, crossbow trained out and up on her right arm, .357 in front on her left. Halfway down, gunfire erupted across the storeroom, and she heard King shout.

Then, _there_, a scritch-scratch of shoes on too-dirty cement. At the end of the aisle. No cover between her and there; why was it waiting? Well, she wasn't going to wait for _it_. Abby leapt up onto one box, ducking into a recess where one carton had been removed, and glancing up and around. Nothing above, the office door was ajar, the glass window displaying only an empty room. No one or thing walking on the causeways above, no one else hiding on the boxes.

_Scritch-scratch. Scritch-scratch._ She pinned the sound, focusing on the spot from memory. _Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch, _pause, _scccrrrraaaaaagh_. It had finally worked up the nerve to dart around the corner; bullets whizzed by, and Abby checked her crossbow. Three shots left before a reload and no time for it; the shots would have to count. One, two, _three_. She tumbled from her hiding spot, rolling to the ground, springing up and loosing the bolts. One went high, the other caught the man in the leg, cutting cleanly through the meat of his calf, and a third ricocheted off the floor near his feet. The leg shot knocked him off balance, and Abby barreling into him sent him sprawling. In the five seconds he was stunned, she had him trussed in one of their rarely used little gadgets: a silver set of handcuffs.

"Stay," she whispered in his ear, shoving him away. The vampire howled as the silver cuffs burned into his skin, which began to sizzle. She crept to the end of the aisle where he'd been standing, collapsing her crossbow and unfolding her longbow from around her quiver. She listened, and hazarded giving up her position to ascertain the situation. "King?"

"I'm a mess," he called across the room, easily and unconcerned. She relaxed.

"I got one vampire over here."

"Goodie."

Abby peered around the boxes to see King struggling towards her. One hand held his pistol tightly, aiming it at the rest of what was being dragged with his other hand. It was the familiar he'd shot in the chest. Contemptuously, he dropped the man, who had pissed himself, next to her whimpering vamp. Her eyebrows peaked in the middle of her forehead at his pained expression.

"Last one," he panted, "kicked…me…in…the…nuts," King grimaced, and then kicked the familiar in the head, a tad viciously, if understandably. King bent over, hands on his knees, for a second or two, then straightened. "No one else here, says my friend."

Abby kicked the vampire over onto his back. There was another hiss and it squealed as the silver bit deeper into it. "That right? Anyone else here?"

"N-no," wailed the vampire.

"What are you doing here?

"Thought-thought you were the _hunter_."

She leaned down real close to him, hauling him up to meet her halfway. "I _am_. But I'm going to take that to mean you thought we were _Blade_." The vampire cowered. "You're pathetic. He would have killed you. _We_," and she gestured to King with her free hand, "We are going to _talk_ first."


	4. Come on and Play

"Nice work," Alyssa tossed a towel to each of them. Zoe sat next to her, reading _The Emerald City of Oz_.

"Did you kill the bad guys?" Zoe asked, innocently.

"No, we did worse," King waved at her and disappeared to shower.

"It's nearly dawn," Caulder checked his watch. "What took so long?"

"Hazardous materials," Abby shrugged out of her leather vest and accessories. "The warehouse was full of chemicals."

"We know," Gidge offered, still focused on his computers. "I cracked the medical supply company shipping records about two hours after you left. They've got their own mortuary set up running there, or so they claimed on their invoice."

"That sounds about right," Abby mused, "we nearly got embalmed."

"What's that mean?" Zoe piped up.

"Formaldehyde," Abby explained, mostly for the others' benefit, "among other things."

"Interesting," Caulder murmured, rubbing his chin. His degree was in biochemical engineering; behind his blank expression, complicated reactions were being run, balanced, tarried and weighed.

"Learn anything?"

"Yeah," Abby retreated to the kitchen for some bottled water. "They know Blade's alive."

"They said that?"

"They thought we were him." She gulped the water, greedily. "Good for us. Put them off their game. Only three were vampires that I saw." To Gidge, she nodded, said, "I put that device you wanted on the computers there. Did you get everything you need?"

"Done and done," Gidge gave her the thumbs up. "I'll blow it when we're out of here. Will keep the cops distracted."

"Good work," Alyssa congratulated her. "Hon?"

"Mm?" Caulder replied, not really hearing her.

"What are you thinking?"

"Not sure yet."

"Then it can wait till we've all had some rest," Alyssa stood up from the couch. "You want first shift?"

"Sure," Abby raised and dropped her shoulders, indifferent. "I won't be able to sleep for a while."

"Good, I'm dying. Gidge?"

"Yeah?" He said, in that off hand way of the perpetually pre-occupied.

"Rest."

"In a minute."

"Hon, you, too." Alyssa grabbed at Caulder's hand, pulling him after her, giving Abby's shoulder a squeeze as they went by. "Anything comes over the wire from Stone or Fox, you'll come get us."

"Sure," Abby nodded, crossing to the couch, collapsing next to Zoe.

"Can we shoot at the targets again?"

"You know it," she winked at the little girl then glanced down at the book. "You've been reading?" Zoe nodded, closing the book and holding it to her chest. It was the Braille copy that belonged to her mother. That was all Zoe had taken from their old base. She was the only one who could read it, now.

"Can I use your bow this time?"

"Not yet, Zoe. You have to work up to it." Zoe pouted, throwing herself back against the couch and wiggling her legs dejectedly. "Hey, cheer up," she elbowed the girl. "You don't want to grow up too fast, do you?"

"Yes, I do," Zoe grumbled, sounding completely serious.

Abby sighed. "Yeah, I bet you do."

* * *

The call from Fox came about three hours later. Abby had lined Zoe up with her old practice bow and drilled her on it for about two hours before Zoe wanted a nap. To the girl's credit, she worked the entire time, not complaining about how her arms hurt, which they must have, Abby knew from experience. And Zoe was getting better; she hit the targets reliably now, if not precisely. Still, it was eerie what a driven little girl was capable of.

"Whistler!" King called out the window to the ground floor. He held his pinky and thumb extended from his fist and wagged it back and forth by his ear. There was a call.

"Coming," she confirmed, taking one last shot of her own. In her hands, the arrow found the target, perfectly bisecting the arrow planted deep in the heart-shaped red section of the dummy. It wasted one arrow, maybe both of them, but it gratified to know she could do it.

Fox, it turned out, was a tanned girl with raven-black hair, and a noticeable tattoo over the left side of her neck. Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed suspiciously at both Abby and King, but Gidge's recognizable blood-shot eyes and hang-dog visage reassured her.

"Hey gang," Fox greeted them. "You're the new guys?"

"In a manner of speaking," Abby answered. "I'm Abigail Whistler, this is Hannibal King." She gestured to King who mock saluted Fox with two fingers.

"Whistler?" Fox smiled. "How about that? Name's Fox, Alexandra Fox. Call me Alex and I kill you."

"Fox, you got anything for us?" Gidge had not, despite Alyssa's order, taken his rest period yet, and his exhaustion showed.

"Well, I can tell you that sharks aren't prowling the Bay any more than usual. Not the ones in the water, at least."

"Stone?"

"He took a dive, he'll be back in a while to let me know how that went."

"Stone's an ex-SEAL. He does aqua-recon," Gidge elaborated.

"If anyone's grabbing the midnight warriors, he'll know."

"Where've you been?"

"Out to Oakland and back. The cell there says it's got nothing for us. They were going to pack up and hit Sacramento."

"That's what I suggested," Abby interjected, testily.

"Nice thought, Whistler, but it's a dead end. They're non-combat. They want to do recon there. Good for us, though, we can have their San Fran place while we're up here."

"We?"

Fox nodded. "You better get your asses up here if you want a piece of this."

"Is it Girl Scout Cookie time again already?" King looked unimpressed.

"Yeah, made from real Girl Scouts, pretty soon."

"That bad?"

"Worse. Gidge?"

"Yes'm," Gidge muttered, fingers flying over keyboards and calling up a schematic. Abby shuddered. Even in just the basic blue and white of architectural plans, it looked uncomfortably like a plant.

"What you're seeing here," Fox narrated, "is what the Oakland crew had for us." Gidge scrolled along the digital file, starting from the top left and working down and right. "From what Alyssa gave me on the plant you described, I'd say we've got another in Marin county. Not as large, which is what worries me." Gidge clicked back onto Fox's video feed.

"Why?" Abby asked.

"Two things. One, they've easily got enough anonymous streetwalkers, performers, tourists, hikers, campers, and sportos in this area to make a monstrous facility. So, why isn't there one? You could hide something built to these dimensions in a typical two-floor apartment, and those are a dime-a-dozen. Two, if there are more than one of these places, where are the other schematics? Other addresses? This is all the Oakland folks had, the only one listed in a database busted off a low-level familiar."

"Ask the familiar again," Abby suggested.

"Can't. They bought him out for the info, but he didn't survive long enough to make any other contributions."

"Still, no reason to panic."

"Maybe not, maybe so. Gidge, exhibit B, please." Another file popped up and over Fox's stream. "What you're looking at now are the telephone records for a Christopher Leung."

"Who's he?"

"At this point, we're not sure. Leung's probably a familiar, though the crew up here hasn't attached him to a master yet."

"Why him?"

"Guy has no experience in the bio-medical industry. Last year, he pushed papers in an accounting firm. As of three months ago, he was the official spokesman and correspondent for Biomedica Industries."

"Talos' corporation," Abby said.

"Bingo. Only he doesn't seem to have been slowed down by the destruction of the facility down by you, or even by the deaths of Talos' themselves. By now, I think it's logical to assume he knows they've been dusted. Whether or not he knows about--" Fox hesitated. When she spoke again, her voice possessed a reverent air to it. "I'm not sure if he knows Blade was involved. But he's not altered his schedule at all. He's giving a conference on the future of artificial blood in America."

"I don't follow."

"A group of Eastern European scientists are attending this. They want to use the recent passage of stem cell research funding laws to begin a massive undertaking involving the production of bone marrow banks that would also be capable of generating blood. Basically, Leung's been calling across the globe, making promises of cash and whatever else to get the best of the best over here."

"Why not use local sources?"

"I don't think he's importing only doctors. His phone records flagged a few numbers in the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, and Russia that are known to be vampire contact numbers."

"He's making dinner plans," King whistled lowly.

"I think so. He gets a few of the old school, maybe even pure-blooded vampires over here, or their lieutenants. In the name of science, he brings over a couple of the firsts, maybe second generation, if he can."

"Which means a new influx of powerful vampires into the state of California," Abby scowled. "Great. Fine, we'll be ready."

"How'd the Daystar go?"

"We've got a decent sample. We tested it again last night."

"Still good?"

"Yeah."

"So, there's going to be a bunch of purebloods arriving up at SFO on a late-night charter in the coming week. Doesn't that make you want to come up here and play?" Fox reappeared as Gidge closed the window, wearing the biggest shit-eating grin Abby'd ever seen. She glanced at King; he nodded, and she turned back to the screen.

"Definitely."


	5. Loose Ends, New Beginnings

The next morning, Danica and Asher Talos walked into the L.A. headquarters of Bank of America to finalize the process their accountant had begun online. All liquid assets were transferred to a Cayman Island account, real estate holdings were sorted into piles to sell back to the bank, put up for sale or set aside for later.

"I'm sorry to hear we'll be losing your business," the bank president, Mr. Vargas, said, standing to shake their hands. "I thought we'd be seeing more of you in the area, not less."

"Well," Danica nearly shrugged, but a sideways glance at Asher and his quick head shake, and she thought better of it. "Our plans are really none of your business." She checked Asher again; a nod--that was better.

"Oh, well, I, uh," Mr. Vargas struggled. It wasn't a good day by any means, losing some millions of assets, and her overt rudeness caught him as a parting low blow. "I hope you've enjoyed your time with us. And, uh, I wish you success in…where was it you said you were going?"

"We didn't," Asher said, evenly. "Shall we?" He extended an arm to Danica.

"Mr. Vargas," Danica bowed her head slightly to the bank man but pointedly ignored his outstretched hand. Papers tucked against her with one arm, she exited with Asher into the bright sunlight outside, leaving the stunned bank president to sit heavily back in his large leather chair. It was not going to be a good day at all.

* * *

"We got it," 'Danica' said when the call to Gidge connected. Disgusted with the sound of her voice, she ripped at the speech modifier attached to her throat. They'd had to pass a voice scan, which Gidge had discovered was attached to the account; vampires were nothing if not extremely anal about protecting their investments. Luckily, a retinal scan hadn't been needed--not that vamps, with their permanently static irises, would have been able to make a retinal map in the first place.

"You've got a flight to catch in two hours. I'd head to the airport now, if I were you."

"Zoe?"

"She's fine. She'll meet you there." Gidge cut off the call, and Abby sighed, tucking the cell phone into the small purse she'd worn to complement the outfit. It was a button-down blue-black dress, light material, hugging her figure but not tightly. In short, not Abby at all.

"I can't believe your ex used to dress like this, King. I can't believe you talked me into wearing this either."

'Asher' ran his hands over his smooth chin and down his throat to remove the modification device there. When he spoke, he was undeniably King again. "It was just a precaution."

"Anyone watching would know we weren't vamps."

"Yeah, but we had to fool the voice print _and_ typical human common sense. People like Danica and Asher look the way they sound. If it didn't match up, we might have had trouble."

"You were looking for an excuse to get me in a dress."

"Thought never crossed my mind," he said, absently, still rubbing at his face. He looked a damn sight younger without the beard and mustache. "I just wasn't sure how much contact they had with the bank."

"I'm surprised there weren't any familiars there."

"There were."

Abby froze. "_What_?"

"None I recognized," King mused, mostly to himself, "but they were there. Nothing they could do while we were there. For all they know, we were sent by their masters to do what we did. But they'll be burning up wires tonight."

"Then why the hell did we go in there?" Abby couldn't smother her irritation; this work was dangerous enough without taking foolish chances.

"Relax. Gidge has locked the IP addresses on the computers, and he'll scan e-mails to see who's been naughty and who's been nice. We'll collect them later."

"It's still a stupid risk."

"Maybe."

"_Maybe_? Maybe nothing, King. We didn't need the money that badly."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Would you rather they had it?"

"No, but we didn't need to…"

"Fine," he grumbled, shoving his hands gracelessly into the depths of the expensive suit pants we wore. "Fine, _we_ didn't need to. Drop it, Whistler." Abby let go of his arm as he pulled ahead, walking to the end of the block and hailing a cab at the corner. She walked up to him slowly, teetering a bit in the heels she'd worn to complete their ruse, a perfect match of unsteady body to match wobbly mind. _What was _that? _We_ didn't need to, he'd said.

It clicked after a second, when King glanced briefly away from the cars going by and over at her. _We_ didn't need to, she realized. _He_ needed to. Frustration boiled alongside pity; while she could understand his need to close that part of his past, it _was_ still a stupid risk, just to have some sort of final revenge or indignity heaped upon the vampire who'd held him captive all those years. Still, when she reached him at the corner, and he looked everywhere over her body except her eyes, she couldn't prevent pity from winning out. Impulsively, and for the first time in any kind of public, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

Goggling at her, King stepped back, his face wild with shock. "What was that for?"

"You're an idiot, you know that?" She linked her arm with his again and put her high-heeled legs to good use. A cab stopped promptly, more than willing to pick them up despite the suicidal dodging and weaving he had to do to get over to them.

"LAX," Abby directed, sliding into the backseat and pretending to take no notice as the cabbie adjusted the rear view to get a better view of the car's rear than anything behind it. King jumped in beside her, self-consciously adjusting his suit. At least, she thought, she wasn't the only one uncomfortable with this role play.


	6. On the Move

Sometime before flight 345 to San Francisco took off from LAX, a small warehouse just outside of L.A. county caught fire unexpectedly. The owner counseled the fire department to use extreme caution given the inflammable nature of the materials being stored inside. It turned out not to matter as the location was sufficiently out of the way that no one noticed until it was too late to save much of the structure.

The owner, a ragged looking man--understandably so, thought the local sheriff, given the circumstances--came down to the station to give a statement. Given the number of different chemicals being stored in the warehouse, it was unlikely that much of an accelerant would have been needed to consume the whole building. It also meant that pinning down the cause would be extremely difficult. Still, the sheriff took one look at the pale, skinny, desolate fellow who showed up to fill out the necessary crime scene forms--they were treating it as a suspicious fire as a matter of protocol--and decided he was no arsonist. Arsonists came in all colors and attitudes, except this one: devastated.

"I'm very sorry about this, Mr. Talos."

"Not at all," the man sighed. "It's really our own fault, I suppose. We should have been more careful with our inventory. All those…things…" he drifted off.

"Were you up to date with the fire codes regarding storage of mass quantities of flammable materials?"

"Yes, we were inspected just last year," the man folded his head in his hands. "It's all on record, I assure you. This must just be…one of those things…"

The sheriff cleared his throat, attempting some pity. It took a lot to move the heart of a career officer who'd seen it all. He wouldn't appear weak, but he could still be compassionate. "Maybe you ought to contact you insurance company, Mr. Talos."

"Right this minute?" The man was on the verge of tears, the sheriff could see it.

"It's standard procedure in the case of catastrophic loss."

"I will, sheriff, I promise. I'm just so tired. This has taken a lot out of me."

"I understand, Mr. Talos." What the hell? What did one day matter? The guy had very likely just lost a substantial piece of his livelihood. And his hesitance to involve the insurance company crossed off arson-for-profit on the policeman's internal motive list. "Go home, get some sleep, sir. We have a number where we can reach you. We'll be in touch when we get the report back from CSU."

"Thank you, sir," Talos sounded pitifully grateful. "Oh, my sister's not going to like this."

The sheriff had a man get him a cab and turned his mind over to the rest of the day's business. The laboratory workup wouldn't be available for a while anyway.

* * *

A man in a suit held up a sign that read: PRESCOTT. Alyssa and Caulder approached him, and he graciously took their bags, escorting them to a car. Abby, Zoe, and King took no notice and kept up their new ruse, and, despite her instincts' screaming, no one paid any attention to them. They hadn't traveled together; Gidge hadn't traveled at all. The Prescotts, Henri and Alyssa, were high profile first-class flyers, and the Sommerfield family were just a harried man and wife taking their daughter on a trip up to enjoy the lousy Bay Area weather. The Prescotts were at the Ritz-Carlton on Stockton; the Sommerfields were over at the Comfort Inn.

No one could have noticed any lingering looks or secret codes passed between the two because there weren't any. The Prescotts departed for their hotel, and the Sommerfields for theirs. Only later would the two connect, once the identities were shed completely.


	7. San Fran and Eli Stone

"Welcome to San Francisco," a trim Hispanic man greeted them as the 'Sommerfields' rucked up to the address Gidge provided them. "Come in." They entered the flat, walking up two flights of stairs to the third floor. All the doors on the lower floors were closed; a few were missing numbers. Abby guessed that, if pushed, not a single one would open onto anything other than maybe a brick wall. The building, according to Gidge, was all theirs.

On the third floor, once a heavy steel-reinforced wood door was closed behind them, the man introduced himself. "I'm Elias Stone. Call me Eli or Stone."

"Abigail Whistler," Abby said over her shoulder as she walked around the apartment.

"Hannibal King." The two shook hands, and King stepped aside and waited expectantly. Zoe made a great show of frowning seriously and looking all up and down Eli Stone's not inconsiderable height.

"Zoe Sommerfield," Zoe said, mimicking their no-nonsense tones. Eli smiled at her.

"Miss Sommerfield," Eli extended a hand that enfolded Zoe's at least twice over. "Anyone need a refresher? We've got plenty of whatever's your pleasure." Eli retreated to the kitchen, and Abby followed. King and Zoe worked in tandem to perform their own examination of the premises.

"Water for me. King? Zoe?"

"Chocolate milk?" Came King's request.

"Me, too!" Zoe called, more enthusiastically.

Abby shrugged as if to say _what _can_ I say?_ Eli chuckled and tossed her a frosty bottled water. To her surprise, Eli produced a small bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup and a gallon of milk. He fetched a couple of glasses and put them out on the island bench top between the kitchen and dining area.

"Gidge mentioned you were bringing a kid with you," Eli nodded at the chocolate syrup. "I took a guess."

"Good guess. Zoe'll eat anything chocolate. King will really have a scotch if you've got."

"Twelve or eighteen-year-old?"

"Damned if I know. I don't drink."

"Admirable," Eli said, opening another cabinet, exchanging one of the glasses for a highball and producing a yellow-tan liquor box from another. "None of that for me, though," he confessed, and another highball glass appeared. He poured and drained two full glasses of scotch before King and Zoe reappeared.

"Sorry, bathroom," King explained, eyeing the scotch. Eli poured him a half-full glass and slid it toward him. Zoe hopped up on a stool and reached for the milk and the Hershey's. All three adults marveled at the amount of syrup that went in the glass before she was satisfied.

"Did your mom let you have that much?" King frowned mock-seriously at her.

"Yes," Zoe rolled her eyes and made off for the living area.

"There's a television there to keep her occupied," Eli explained, pouring himself a third scotch.

"That's okay," Abby said. "She'll be just as interested in your shooting range."

"Really? _Dios_," Eli shook his head. "That young?"

"She's older than she looks," Abby murmured, sucking on her water. King said nothing when Eli glanced between them.

"Her mother?"

"Lost her when the vamps cleaned us out," Abby sighed, tired already of discussing it. Eli appeared to recognize this and cleanly changed the subject.

"Fox is out doing her thing. You came at just the right time. I got back an hour ago."

"Where from?"

"Coast Guard, search and rescue."

"News?" King asked.

"Not from them, but I tipped off a buddy of mine there. He trusts my judgment."

"What about?"

"Maybe we should wait till we're all here."

"Tell me about the surfers," Abby prodded him. She didn't want to wait. They had less than six hours to sundown.

"I was in the water about twenty-four hours yesterday," Eli supplied, not impressed or vexed by her urgency, "and I got the Coasties' report."

"Which was?"

"They said they'd gotten a few missing persons complaints, mostly the midnight marauder types. Around here, most people keep their sporting to the weekend, but the natives are at it all times of the day. There are some great winds at night, too. I kite-board myself."

"Did you see anything?"

Eli scratched the stubble on his chin. "Not really. I marked down a few boat names where I saw guys climb on board who'd taken a spill, or even ones that hadn't. You get that, too. People get dropped off in the Bay to go wind-surfing or kite-boarding, and their buddies on the speedboat come back for them later."

"How regular?"

"Well, like I said, most of the night shift are veterans and natives. They paddle out the old-fashioned way, catch a wind and a wave and are gone." Eli downed his scotch, planting the empty glass back down with enough force to make a resounding_ clink_ as it hit. "The damnedest thing, though. About three or four people I saw nearly got swiped by speedboats."

"You get names?"

"I've got a photographic memory," Eli said by way of explanation. "Sometimes, the boats didn't even stop. Anyone was hurt, I would have radioed Steve at the Guard, but there weren't any serious accidents. A few boats stopped and picked up the guy in the water. From there, about half got back on the boards, half took the ride into shore. And that's not taking into account the ones in the water who were being watched and had rides arranged to pick them up if they got tired."

"Jesus," King swore, following suit with Eli and gulping down his scotch. Eli refreshed it for him. "People just let themselves be picked up by complete strangers?" Abby cast him a withering look, the message clear: _who are you to talk?_ King cleared his throat noisily, but he didn't seem the least embarrassed or caught out; rather, he seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh.

"When you're dumped in _that_ water on a rough patch, you'd welcome the first guy with an engine and a blanket, trust me," Eli said.

"So they can just grab people in the light of day?"

"With their familiars, yeah, it would seem so. Why it took them this long to find this source for meat, I can't say."

"Plenty of other sources, ones less likely to be missed," Abby offered. Someone rich enough to afford boarding equipment would probably have at least a few people wondering where he went if he didn't return.

"A lot of the boarders know each other, too," Eli continued. "They've been at it for years, especially the natives."

"They'd have to screen the ones they pick up somehow."

"All you need is one guy who wants to spend the rest of eternity hanging ten in the dark to get a familiar into that crowd," King added.

"So, maybe it's taken some time. There isn't that much fear of sharks in these waters, even with the sea lions. Most stay away from that area."

"How are they getting away with it, then?"

"There's not a lot of sympathy for a few missing adventurers. Name your poison: board-sailing, camping, hiking, walking in front of traffic--enough people get killed everyday doing normal things, so the ones who go out where they can fall prey to wild animals or changing wind conditions usually garner little sympathy."

"If they're screening them, too," King followed along the train of thought, "they wouldn't take anyone who'd be missed especially."

"Or anyone with a buddy," Eli agreed. "Buddy system's gotten big out here again because of these attacks."

"What about landed victims?" Abby asked, eager to turn the conversation onto the usual territory instead of worrying where _else_ vampires were getting their raw materials from these days.

"There's no way to account for the numbers of the homeless that might have been scooped up. However many they take, shelters haven't noticed any drop in attendance or need. Fox worked that over a few days ago."

"Tourists?"

"That makes the news where they're from more than it does here, and if the person's alone, there's no way to know who actually went to San Fran like they told their family and who just picked up and moved on." Abby frowned. This wasn't good news at all, none of it. How could it be that they could take out Dracula, arguably the best chance the bad guys had at maintaining their winning advantage, and things could sill seem so hopeless?

"What about this blood conference?" King redirected.

"Fox can brief you on that better than I," Eli admitted. "She followed Leung from Gidge's information. I think you saw most of what she had for you."

"Any ideas why vampires might be stockpiling embalming fluids by the warehouse load?"

"Nothing I can contribute there. Fox has had more experience. Med school drop-out."

"Why drop-out?" Abby asked, though she already guessed the answer.

"To do this, why else?"

"How about you, Sarge?" King cocked his head the way he did when he was about to say something that would probably piss off the person he was talking to. " 'Don't ask, don't tell'?"

Eli guffawed, heartily, without any trace of anger. Abby almost had trouble believing her own eyes and ears. "You're all right for a white boy," Eli said, raising his empty glass in salute. King did the same. _Men_, Abby rolled her eyes. Beating each other up and insulting one another meant they were friends. Eli shook his head, still chuckling. "No, I stumbled into this line of work through a friend of mine."

"Yeah?" King's tone suggested genuine interest.

"Guy I went through the program with," Eli said, pausing, eyes misting over as he relived the glory days before continuing, "second best in the unit, I'd say."

"Second to you, I assume," Abby goaded, smiling around her water when Eli folded his large arms menacingly.

"Damn right. Anyway, we went out after graduating to get the requisite tatts for our accomplishment."

"Why?"

Eli's expression spoke of disbelief. "When you get through the SEAL training, you tell me why you want a permanent reminder you did, sweetheart."

"Okay, whatever, go on," Abby waved away his wounded pride.

"We went for the arm. It's, you know, traditional among us macho-bullshit types." King bit the edge of his glass to keep from smirking; Abby glared at him anyway. "This guy, Beast, we called him, said he wanted it tattooed on his dick so his girlfriend would have to see it every time she sucked him off. Oh, excuse me, forgot there were ladies present," Eli pardoned himself. Abby gave him the finger, and King, wisely, kept quiet.

"So, Beast convinces the rest of us to get right here," Eli gestured to a spot right below his belly button and just north of his package. Abby was acutely aware of King swallowing heavily next to her, but she held her face impassive.

"Very macho bullshit," she commended him.

"Well, then there was J.P.," Eli scratched his chin. "Hairy guy, like you wouldn't believe. Started pitching a fit about how he'd have to shave off his pubes to get it done down there. And we believed him. If you'd seen that guy in the shower, you would have, too."

"Right," said King, flatly without inflection.

"Well," Eli paused, seeming embarrassed, "I never really like J.P., to be honest. I thought it would be a laugh and give him shit to, you know, make him." Neither Abby nor King's expressions suggested they found this the slightest bit reprehensible. "Beast and I grabbed the guy and tossed him in the showers. Beast sat on him and I shaved."

"And you found more than you expected."

"I'll be goddamned if I know how the suck-faces found that thing on him normally."

"It's supposed to be a good place to hide it," King filled in, not looking at either of them. There was a curious wrong-ness to his tone.

"Well, it would have worked. We teased him so bad. Said he was embarrassed because the first thing he did when he'd turned eighteen was to run off and get some little squiggles tattooed on his dick, just like Beast'd said."

"How'd he take that?"

"I'm the last living member of that graduating class. I would say he didn't take it very well, wouldn't you?" King grunted, eyes still on the drink in his hands. "Exactly," Eli nodded. "I wouldn't ever have thought anyone could take Beast down, 'sides me. Even though J.P. was a scrappy bugger and a crack shot, Beast was just huge. He'd sit on J.P. and that would be the end of it. 's how we found the glyph in the first place, right?'

"How'd you survive?"

"Had me a brush with Lady Luck," Eli said, voice full of hallowed overtones. King finally caught her eye to exchange a knowing look; Eli spoke like Fox did and about the same person.

"You mean Blade?"

"El Diablo," Eli swore, crossing himself. "I never seen anything move as fast as the little skinny buggers that came with J.P. that time. Until that motherfucker showed up. Tore them assholes some new ones, saved my ass."

"Were you bit?"

"Nah," Eli said, dismissively. "J.P. wanted me, and they let him have me. Aside from that, they were pretty efficient. Took out the five guys I trained with in about fifteen minutes. They were going to intervene with J.P. and I 'cause I was winning when Blade showed up. Dusted them with his sword then turned it on me, asked if I was bit."

"He's a great conversationalist," King said, sarcastically.

"Cops didn't believe my story. Fox showed up at my place a few days after they cleared me of responsibility, told me I was dead man if I didn't go with her."

"And you went," Abby nodded.

"I saw what those things were. I believed her."

"Good for you. Did you get the pen and the free gift basket, too? Mine's still on back-order."

Eli grinned. "You don't need door prizes when a beautiful woman comes your way." He flashed a smile at Abby, winking conspiratorially and glancing at King.

"What about Fox? What's her story?"

"She'll tell you, if she wants."

"When do we get to meet her?"

"She's picking up Caulder and Alyssa. So, until they get here, relax. I'll show you around, and you can catch a nap or a shower if you need it."

"I could use a nap before tonight," Abby conceded. "King?"

"Some of us believe we're beautiful enough, Abby."

Eli shook his head, muttering to himself in Spanish. "I'll show _you_ a room then."

"One sec, let me just let Zoe know." Eli busied himself clearing the glasses and returning the milk to the fridge. When his back was turned, she pinched King on the thigh. He blinked, scanned her face, read the question there, and nodded once, sincerely. _Okay_, she nodded back, standing up and going over to find Zoe asleep on the couch. For a seven year old, Zoe napped a lot. It reminded her, uncomfortably, of herself, of all of them, sleeping whenever they could, lest they should miss the opportunity and not have it again in the near future.

"She's fine." King. She felt him, close, fought the urge to hug him. He stood behind her, rubbed her upper arms. "Get some sleep, Whistler."

"You, too," she admonished, and he rumbled something like an 'okay.' She turned, catching his hand, squeezing it once, and walking back to where Eli waited to show her a room. Tossing King one last cursory glance, she followed Eli down the corridor toward the suite of bedrooms and collapsed into a welcoming queen-sized bed, asleep the moment she'd kicked off her shoes and laid down.


	8. Gang's All Here

Abby woke to find Zoe curled up next to her. There were voices, hushed yet audible, coming from the direction of the kitchen. Silencing her own breathing, Abby listened, picking up the steady, low cadence she associated with King. An accented, stilted speaker, that was Caulder, so Alyssa was probably there as well. There was a pause in the conversation that must be someone speaking softly because there was a small cacophony of laughter right after. Gently, without disturbing Zoe, Abby slipped out of the bed and padded on the outsides of her feet towards until she'd closed the door.

"Whistler," King stage-whispered, gesturing for her to join them. Indeed, the Caulders had arrived, Alyssa reclining against the back of a dining chair, Caulder beside her. Eli leaned against the bar area, and a woman Abby recognized as Fox sat opposite King at the table.

"Nice to meet you in person," Fox extended a hand, which Abby shook. King nudged a chair out for her to sit on. "We've not started yet." Abby checked her watch; she'd been asleep three hours. There were only two and a half till sundown. "We wanted to make sure we were all here."

"Coffee," Abby grumbled, though sleep was fast departing.

"Gotcha covered," Eli said, reaching for a mug and a full pot behind him on the bar. "Cream or sugar?"

"Neither," Abby waved him off and sat next to King. "What's the word?"

All business, Fox nodded and began. "Shelters in the area haven't noticed any drops in attendance, as I'm sure Stone told you." Nods all around, and she continued, "I've been working all hours at Fisherman's Wharf, checking up on the tourist scene. A few people didn't show up who'd booked tickets on cruises, the usual, nothing new."

"So, all you can tell us is that nothing's changed?"

"Ah, ah, ah," Fox wagged a finger at her. "Just because nothing's 'new' doesn't mean nothing's _changed_. There are always more homeless where the homeless come from, especially in this economy, and likewise with tourists. Just because the level of business doesn't change doesn't mean the number of missing hasn't."

"With the economic downturn of late," Stone embellished, "we should be seeing _more_ people on the street. More shelters with doors full to bursting. Conversely, there should also be more tourists--more people traveling within the US because they can't afford to go abroad with the exchange rates being what they are."

"Precisely," Fox's eyes widened quickly as she spoke, an excited tic. "And I've been missing some of my regulars. I have some friends at the shelters, but you can't get better info than from the people inside, the ones who have to sleep when strange people come prowling."

"Good to be a light sleeper," King mumbled.

"You bet," Fox agreed. "I've lost Ron, one of my old favorites in the Richmond district. He's a paranoid schizophrenic, so the Devil knows how they managed to sneak up on him. He already thought everyone was out to get him before I told him about the vampires."

"You told him?" Abby couldn't keep an expression of distaste off her face.

"Did him a _favor_, honey," Fox snapped, "and it made his day to know he was right. Anyway, the take home message here is that there is a definite turnover going on, more so than usual, more successful, too, if Ron is any indication."

"Is he?" King asked.

"I'd say so. Just because he's homeless and crazy doesn't mean he's stupid."

Alyssa cleared her throat. "Any new clues about the plant diagram you found?"

Fox shook her head. "Gidge still has nothing, and I have no new leads on Leung. Just his itinerary for this conference. Oh, _and_," Fox grinned, "the _guh-va-nator_ is attending the opening."

"No shit?" Eli looked impressed. "We don't have to worry about him, too, do we?"

"Not as a vampire, certainly," Alyssa groaned. "I mean, just look at his tan. As a familiar…well, I guess we can't rule _anything_ out, but chances are better that this is just political maneuvering. If this country would ever consider changing the Constitution to let a naturalized citizen run for President, it would do it for him."

"Maybe that's the grand vampire end game," King snorted derisively, "put a familiar in the White House."

"Right," Abby rolled her eyes, "make us more unpopular in the world than we are right now? Only a vampire lackey for a president could do that."

"We can't overlook the Governor's background," Caulder interjected. "He's from Austria, the old world, like me. We have a longer history of dealing with vampires than other nations." He had a point.

"Does that make him a bad guy or someone who would believe us?"

"Does anyone _ever_ believe us?" King grumbled. "_Blade_ didn't fucking believe us."

"He didn't fucking believe _you_," Abby reminded him.

"Either way," Fox brought the subject around again, "it's unlikely he will be either a target or a sympathizer for either side. I only brought it up because it means security the first day will be especially brutal. There will be civilian forces involved." Civilian, she meant, instead of just 'human;' there would definitely be human forces to protect the visiting vampires.

"So, no daylight action the first day," Abby shrugged.

"Remember we're also dealing with a major city post-9/11," Eli frowned. "Air-borne biological weapons are high on the shit list."

"We are _not_ going to leave Daystar out of this," Abby said, firmly. "We tested another batch two nights ago, and it's still incredibly potent."

"How much stock have you got left?"

"Probably enough for the conference. If we used the AC, no problem at all. It would reproduce in the vampires, and we could take home the new particles they released."

"We need to examine the convention hall first," Fox cautioned. "It's possible that they'll have specialty venting systems to prevent just such a thing. Remember, this is a group of doctors as well as vampires, and the two could be one and the same. It's also possible that none of the purebloods will attend the conference but will wait from word from their familiars."

"Jesus, this is a logistical nightmare," Alyssa rubbed her forehead.

"No, we just don't have enough information yet," Abby reassured her.

"And we're coming at this city with two problems. One, the increased culling of the homeless," Fox ticked off on her fingers, "and two, the convention. They're unrelated, I think, unless an unusual amount of blood is being stocked for the visitors. Either way, the plant escalation fits with the vampire final solution initiative in general. We should focus on the conference first. That's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"I don't know," Abby disagreed, "I'd be willing to bet it's just the start."


	9. The Handler Has a Name

The American Medical Association was not officially involved with the Biomedica symposium on stem cell funding for artificial blood genesis research. The Red Cross had sent representatives, but they would not rock the boat or ask really tough questions; their envoy consisted of overly eager volunteers headed by a cool professional who would ask the pertinent questions relating to a time line for blood production while the booster club around him encouraged the politicians, officials, and research and clinical doctors to invest their time and money into the projects put forth by Biomedica.

Security on the first day would be the result of a joining of the governor's personal bodyguards and security team and that provided by Biomedica. Aside from the governor's force, supposedly none of the Biomedica security would be armed with more than a walkie-talkie and the requisite nightstick. In liberal California, a symposium on stem cell research drew little of the hellfire and righteous indignation that might have cropped up in other states.

Or, so, the Biomedica website claimed. Gidge forwarded the relevant numbers he'd culled from the e-mails at Biomedica to the crew in San Francisco, just for them to have. The security force there appeared genuinely unaware of what the bosses were up to. As of yet, he had yet to successfully penetrate Leung's personal accounts. Alyssa warned him off it until they were certain of Leung's intentions and skills, though nothing Gidge had put together on him suggested there was cause for concern.

He flipped over to check on their impromptu sting over at the Bank of America branch that had housed the Talos' holdings. Thus far, three properties were gone, revenue redirected from the sale to bank fees and the leftover to Swiss and other offshore accounts, which would forward automatically elsewhere, circling the globe enough times to lose any tracker. He scanned e-mails from the bank, too, to see if anyone had made Whistler and King for fakes. So far, nothing, so it was time to go to the audiotape.

The bugs King planted for him could pick up sound only in a ten-foot diameter around them, but the risk of exposure from a discovered bug was not worth the risk of planting many. Fortunately, King had some intelligence riding backseat to his swagger and had distributed the bugs accurately, with some cunning, and, as yet, unnoticeably. Gidge had pegged King as the more likely to know which employees running around in a busy bank were suspect, and he was not disappointed.

Three hours after the Talos siblings departed the bank, one bug recorded a strange lunchtime conversation. Gidge adjusted the sound setup on his equipment, taking down the ambient noise, amplifying the voices.

_"Tony, you coming for lunch?"_

_"Sorry, got a client doing a callback in a few on his break. Want to take it first. I'll catch up."_

There were footsteps, laughter, rude jokes, rumbling stomachs, and the tape grew quiet again, broken here and there by ringing phones, unanswered. Not one soft bleat of an unattended phone cut off midway, and when the person Gidge identified as 'Tony' spoke again, he must have dialed out because the conversation began too obviously on his end.

_"This is Tony. Let me speak to Filia…she's going to want to hear this."_

A long pause ensued, and Gidge could almost imagine Tony sweating out the wait.

_"Filia, look, I'm sorry to call you in the middle of the day like this…yes, yes it's important. The Taloses were just here…yes, I know. They walked out into the bright sunshine, you get me?"_

Ah, Gidge smiled to himself. _Gotcha, Tony_.

_"When?"_ Tony sounded panicked._"Jesus, no, I mean, _that's_ what he was in town for? Oh my God…"_

Gidge scratched out some notes, marking the approximate time the call had been made, madly clicking on his computer and calling up a service request for the phone company on behalf of…_ta-dah_…one Tony Baker.

_"What should I do?"_

"Yes," Gidge confirmed for the operator who'd come on in one headphone while he finished out Tony's panic attack on the other. "I'd like to report a problem I'm having with the caller ID service on my--" he checked the model listed on the bank invoice, "my Rolm450. Yes, I'll hold."

_"What do you mean, 'nothing'? What if _he's_ here?"_

"When can I expect you? Oh, at my convenience, that's terrific. How's about ten, tomorrow morning? Fantastic, this really saves my ass." He hung up the line, surfed over to the internal network at the phone company and waited for the service request to be processed.

_"The guy was tall, I didn't get a good look. Wore a suit, nice one. The woman had dark hair, kind of gelled up funny, spiky heels."_

Gidge listened to Tony describe King and Whistler in their guises. He was surprised it had worked at all. Probably, Tony hadn't counted on having to remember their faces until it was too late. His tone began to edge towards the hysterical.

_"Yeah, it sounds like them, but this was today…yes, _today_, as in they left a few hours ago…a week? They've been dead a week? What do you mean 'it's more like two'?"_

The service request popped onto the servers. Tomorrow, at ten a.m., a technician by the name of Josh Frank would stop by the Bank of America to fix a Rolm450 telephone for Tony Baker. After a few keystrokes, Josh's itinerary rearranged itself back to the way it had been. Gidge copied the altered form, the one with Frank going to the bank, onto his hard drive and printed it out on triplicate stationary with the phone company's logo.

_"Maybe I should get out of here…what? Why not? He's been in the city, they had something on the news about it"_

Gidge located suitably plain gray overalls and fished for some labels.

_"What about the conference? If he knows about that…right, but, he _could!"

Gidge paused, returned to the feed and replayed the last bit, banishing all thoughts of tomorrow's job to concentrate carefully on Tony's unraveling brain.

_"What about the conference? If he knows about that…right, but he_ could!_ And if he's supposed to be dead…Jesus, we're fucked."_

Supposed to be dead? Did that mean the vampire or handler talking to Tony, this Filia, knew the body in the FBI labs was Drake's? He wished the phone had been tapped already; Tony was quiet a long time, probably while his handler explained things to him. When next Tony spoke, calm had returned to his voice.

_"The FBI are going to be all over the Talos accounts. They'll probably find these people. But…but who _are_ they, Filia?"_

Good question, Gidge mused. That's what he wanted to know about this Filia person. Database search later, definitely.

_" 'None of my concern'? Are you kidding? I could be exposed on this…no, I didn't handle their account, but the president…you're telling me to just stay here? Yes, I know, but…fine. I'll keep my eyes open, but they're probably long gone. You might want to check out the conference. If they know about that…did I recognize them? No, I told you, I only saw them on the way out when I heard Vargas talking."_

Well, that answered that much. Gidge applied the patches to the jumpsuit. He'd need a patch that read "Frank" and some numbers for the technician's serial. Otherwise, he'd pass muster.

_"Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I just thought you'd tell me if something like this…the bright side? That he's moved on? Oh, yes, that's great. He killed Danica, Filia Doesn't that mean anything? Asher, too Is there anything else you're not telling me?"_

Plenty, Gidge laughed to himself at Tony's expense. Filia wasn't telling him that Dracula, the progenitor, was dead and gone. That, according the FBI's classified report, the body had decayed into dust when the autopsy had been attempted.

_"Fine. I'll hear from you soon? Why only after the conference?"_

Damn, that was one Gidge really could stand to know, too.

_"Fine. I'll call you."_

On the tape, a plastic clicking noise sounded, signaling the end of the phone call. It was enough. Gidge forwarded the relevant information to Stone's computer.

His phone rang, and he let it, watching as the call traced back to a police line. _Ah,_ he picked it up, switching the tracker program to the record function.

"Sheriff Towley?"

"It's me, Mr. Talos. I'm calling with a couple of questions."

"Shoot."

"I was hoping we could talk in person, if you could come back down to the precinct."

"Is there anything new to report?"

"Not really," and Gidge could hear the lie in the easy tone, "but we would like to get more of a statement from you. We'll need it, as will you if you want to fill out the insurance forms."

"Ah, Sheriff, bad news about that, I'm afraid," Gidge threw all his true weariness into his voice until it trembled. "I contacted my agent. It seems highly unlikely I will see any windfall from this mess."

"Not up to date on our fire codes were we?" The police officer sounded smug, as if he had somehow deserved this fate.

"Well, not to their satisfaction. It seems there's a few hundred clauses about flammable materials that they neglected to mention when I bought the policy on the warehouse."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Talos, I truly am. Still, we'll need you to come down. This has been a very unfortunate accident, and you don't want to make it any worse for yourself, do you?"

"Excuse me, Sheriff, is there something you're not telling me?" Gidge's hackles raised; after the mess the others had described when they liberated Blade from police headquarters downtown, Gidge was not inclined to trust any law officer, even one as essentially honest and good as Towley had seemed.

"It's standard procedure to treat this as a malicious fire, and we will be investigating it as such. You'll need to account for all materials and personnel so we can conduct our investigation."

That presented him with a problem. On the warehouse's employment list were names, names Gidge assigned to the familiars Whistler and King reported taking out. The bodies hadn't been left there, but was it possible the forensics showed someone had been there? Blood, perhaps?

"Sheriff, I haven't accounted for all my staff just yet." He needed to buy time, to divert attention. No way was he going to talk at the station. He'd already gone down there once as was, and, if they were looking into a criminal case, the last thing he wanted was to be stuck in a building full of cops while they looked into his story. "I'm worried someone might have been there at the time. My secretary hasn't been able to get in touch with…oh _God_," Gidge moaned. "Was someone _there_? Is that what you won't tell me?"

"Mr. Talos, I think it would be best if you came and talked to us."

"Sweet Jesus, _just tell me!_"

Sheriff Towley breathed heavily into the phone, weighing his options. "I'll level with you, Mr. Talos. The CSU report included some evidence of blood. No bodies," he quickly backpedaled, "but we're pretty sure someone was there, someone who may have been seriously hurt or might have hurt someone. If there's anything you know that might help us, you need to tell us."

"_Jesus_," Gidge wailed, choking on a sob. Man, he was good. "I'll be down tomorrow, Sheriff."

"Thank you, sir. Please, if you have names of the people who are missing, we'd appreciate having them."

"I didn't ask who they were," Gidge said, absently. It was too perfect, his act of stunned near-senility. "I'll…I'll ask my secretary."

"You do that. When can I expect you?"

"Tomorrow, say around ten?"

"Right. Again, I'm sorry about all this, Mr. Talos."

"Not as sorry as me, Sheriff. Goodbye." Gidge hung up, sniffed hard to clear his nose, then dialed San Francisco.

"Stone."

"They found blood in the warehouse fire. I'm going to have dodge them on this."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, someone from the bank contacted someone named 'Filia.' Sound familiar?"

Stone hummed over the line, thinking. "Not off the top of my head. We'll run it by the folks on their way to Sacramento."

"I'm bugging the phone tomorrow."

"Watch your ass."

"Will do."


	10. The Right Man for the Job

"Filia? Hah _Feliar_! Her name is _supposed_ to be _Feliar_ now. It's her goddamned 'vampire identity,'" Fox cursed, an ugly expression crossing her otherwise perennially amused features. "Feliar was a demi-god out in New Mexico."

"Where she's from," Stone explained to the rest of the room.

"She's a _witch_," Fox swore, slamming her fist down on the dining room table. "She didn't need to offer vampirism. She could have sold insurance, and people would be beating down her door."

"Excuse me?" Abby blinked at her. "Details?"

"My brother," Fox snarled, "had a fling with this woman."

"Feliar?"

"Yes."

"You never mentioned her before," Alyssa said, guardedly.

"She wasn't a vampire at the time. She was a handler. Waiting for her turn, I assume. She tricked my brother into offering up my nieces to her master."

"Who's her master?"

Fox shook her head, grinding her teeth. "Never found him. The vamp ripped those girls' throats out and vanished, taking Feliar with."

"Why haven't you been able to find her until now?"

"She knows I'm looking for her." Fox wore an expression that said, quite loudly, that the only reason Feliar was still alive was because Fox didn't know where she was.

"Will she be able to make you if you hit the conference with us?"

"Yes," Fox brushed aside her hair to display the tattoo over her neck. It was a Native American drawing of a fox, tongue hanging out, giving it a demonic, rabid appearance. Beneath the face, it said, simply: _Bite Me._ "I got this for her when I thought she'd killed my nieces."

"Then you're out," Caulder said, reclining in his chair.

"Not on your life," Fox hissed. "I am going in on this. If she has even the slightest chance of being there, I _will_ be there." Her tone brooked no argument.

"What happened to your brother?" Abby looked at King, surprised. First Stone, now Fox. He usually didn't care why anyone got in the game. Hell, whenever someone asked him about his reasons for joining the Nightstalkers, he made a joke of it. He didn't appear to be joking with Fox.

"He killed himself," Fox whispered, seeming small and girlish for the first time since Abby had met her. "He haunts me, sometimes." She closed her hand over the tattoo on her neck. "When Feliar dies, he will rest easy."

"So, we wait and see what Gidge has," Alyssa concluded. "If she's there, we'll figure something else out. We need to get our people in there, but we're going to have to consider Fox out of the running for now."

"Me, too, maybe," King offered, displeased. Abby swallowed against a nervous lump in her throat as hard looks were cast at him and then, in turn, at her.

"What's your story?" Fox raised an eyebrow at him. King stood, pushing back his chair, all nonchalant and unconcerned. He raised his shirt and hooked his thumb in his pants, dragging them down an couple of inches. There was a collective sharp inhalation around the room; expressions ranged from murderous--Eli, to curious--Fox, to guilty--Alyssa.

"Son of a _bitch_," Eli grated, fists clenched. Briefly, Abby wondered how they would subdue him if he attacked, but Fox held up a hand in front of him, pushing insistently at his chest.

"Relax, partner. It's just the same placement. The glyph is different." It was strange, the way madness see-sawed between them, Fox level-headed with Eli enraged, and probably swinging back again. For now, though, she'd take it, as Fox looked slightly less inclined to kill King. "Whose?" Fox asked, indicating the glyph just below King's belly button.

"Danica Talos," King said, evenly. The room at large absorbed this information. Eli's face relaxed in a hurry and resumed an expression of professional indifference. Fox still regarded him with a wondrous or, perhaps, _wondering_, countenance. It chilled Abby, inciting, though she pretended not to notice, a sharp flare of irrational distrust, envy, and suspicion.

"There's a chance," Caulder spoke after a moment, "a small chance, that Alyssa and King would be able to infiltrate the conference undetected." Beside him, his wife shuddered, and Caulder hugged her with one arm. Abby fought the urge to reassure King the way Caulder did his wife. King didn't need it. Whatever he'd been through as Danica's pet, he had come off with a healthy hatred for vampires that deflected most of the psychological trauma--_turning a frown upside down_, he'd said. Alyssa didn't look as though she'd come through it quite as well.

"Maybe," King shrugged, "but I doubt it. Danica didn't seem surprised to see me when we rescued Blade. I thought she might miss me," he pouted, but Abby could see his jaw muscles tighten.

"I belonged to Quinn, out east," Alyssa said, her words curiously hollow and detached. "He's been gone for nearly seven years." She shook her head, clearing it, and the focus and feeling came back to her next words. "We don't know how well vampires know the glyphs. Or even what they mean, really."

"I wouldn't worry about the vampires. I'm just thinking it would work to get past security, if they're familiars."

"Gidge says not, but that's only the official word. He's still working on cracking the rest of Biomedica's private correspondence," Eli informed them. "He'll have a few friends hack with him to get it, but I think it would be safe to say that Caulder's right. There will be some familiars on staff."

"Mmm," Fox bit her lower lip, still staring at King. By now, he had noticed, and stared right back.

"Fox?"

"Mmm?"

"Something on your mind?"

A toothy grin spread across her face. "I was thinking Caulder has the right idea."

"That's all? Nothing you want to share with us?"

"I was thinking about how far you'd get with Feliar, King."

"_Excuse me_?" Abby gaped at the woman, but Fox kept her gaze on King. For his part, King didn't flinch.

"You're trying to set me up with an old friend of yours." He mulled it over. "Is she cute?"

"Very."

"Trouble?"

"Very."

"Am I going to regret going out with her?"

"_Yes_," Fox hissed, barely restraining herself.

"Sounds perfect. When can I meet her?"

"Oh, _God_, I hope she's here" Fox clapped her hands together. It might have been possible to imagine that she spoke of someone she loved, that her earlier vitriol amounted to nothing but friendly teasing. Only a manic fire in Fox's eyes and the dent she had worried into her lip with her teeth said otherwise.

"Wait, I'm missing something, aren't I?" Eli asked, glancing between his tense partner and the apathetic King. Alyssa and Caulder exchanged a look.

"You want him to seduce this woman?"

"Not really necessary," Fox brushed aside Abby's concern. "You're her type. Just show up, preferably in something…" she fished for the word, "slutty." Abby snorted, King faked disgust.

"Encouraging," King drawled. "And I was looking forward to a long term commitment this time."

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Filia," King tried out the word. He looked over at her, beseechingly. She held herself impassive, giving him nothing. "Abby."

"What?"

"You're being quiet, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this plan."

"What plan? All I'm hearing is Fox's hell bent on revenge. How does it help us? What does Feliar or Filia or whoever have to do with Leung and the conference?"

"Nothing, perhaps," Caulder smirked at King, "but it is no waste of Mr. King's talents to have him dig into it."

"How do we find her?"

"Gidge will get us the details from a tap," Eli suggested. "We can do a reverse directory search, find out where she's been calling the familiar at the bank in L.A. from. Then we'll see that King gets to be friendly."

"Business or pleasure?" Alyssa wondered aloud.

"Neither," King said immediately.

"Show her the glyph," Abby said. "That would get her to trust you."

"Uh-uh," Fox shook her head. "She's the type who might know your handler was dead. Just be a pretty face for her. You _can_ do that, _right?_" Fox didn't seem like she was entirely sure and so turned to Abby for confirmation. "He does…you know, _shut up_, on occasion?"

"He has his moments," Abby shrugged.

"That will have to do," Fox rubbed her hands together. "What's next?"

"Hey, do I get a say in this?" King interrupted.

"You did. You said yes."

"Maybe I was joking."

"Maybe you should practice shutting up now."


	11. There's Always Tomorrow

Abby rolled onto her back, unable to sleep. They concluded the planning late, taking a run out into the streets with Fox to learn the territory. Stone returned to the harbor to follow up on the boat names he'd pulled from his prodigious memory and match them to the manifests and pier moorings listed with the harbor master, who happened to be a friend. Alyssa and Gidge conferred over finance matters and the latest from L.A. about the fire, the FBI's case against Blade, etcetera. Caulder kept working on theories about a warehouse full of formaldehyde, infrequently giving up and returning to examining the roster of expected guest speakers and bio-tech firms that would attend the conference.

Which had left her, King, Fox, and Zoe free after their ride around town. King took Zoe shooting, graduating her to actual bullets from darts and arrows. She was too small to handle the magnum, but Alyssa and Gidge had altered one of Hedges' designs to minimize the kick of one of the electronic pistols. They were doing silenced rounds into targets twenty feet away in the garage level of their base. Fox crashed, and Abby helped Zoe do the same on the couch in the living area, retiring with King on her heels after they were sure Zoe was asleep. They had sex, and King passed out in short order. She did not.

Now, it was the wee hours of Thursday morning. They had one week until the conference. Giving up on sleep for a while, Abby padded out of her room, tossing on one of the tacky souvenir shirts she'd picked up at the airport. She picked up her quiver, which sat atop a chair in the corner of the dining area. Gingerly, she pressed upon the leather, depressing it and sliding away the false bottom. A black case fell out, and she set the quiver aside. She opened the case and switched on the PDA, removing the stylus and waiting, poised to type.

She checked her e-mail; there was one new message. It had no subject, it would be entirely blank save for a time. The time was 2:00 a.m. GMT -8 Hr. The clock on the wall read 1:54 a.m. She would be just in time; she signed onto a messaging client as WhistlingDixie, set aside the PDA and fetched a glass of water. To pass the time, she prowled around the apartment. Abby checked on Zoe, who remained as she had been before, fast asleep. Alyssa and Caulder's door was ajar, and his light snores could be heard through the crack. Eli wouldn't be back for another few hours. Fox dozed, stirred when she walked by, and fell back to sleep after ascertaining Abby was no threat.

"Hey," King called when she turned back from their room, wresting a creak from the boards beneath the carpet. She hadn't intended to check on him, seeing as he usually slept like the dead. Abby ducked her head in through their door. "Something up?" His eyes and posture were alert. The enemy had caught him sleeping once in the last few weeks, and that was enough.

"No, just couldn't sleep," she slid through the door, crossing to the bed and sitting down on the end of it.

"Tragic heroines rarely do," King said, lying back. Abby walked back towards the pillows on her hands and knees, gave him a charming smile that visibly alarmed him, then drove her fist down into his gut. He grunted and knocked her off balance by sweeping her supporting arm. She fell onto the pillow beside him.

"Smartass," she growled, good-humoredly, then made a show of reconsidering this. "Well, the ass part at least is true." He said nothing, just reached under her to gather her back towards him, and she allowed it. It struck her as friendly and not romantic, this silent reassurance.

"Everything's okay, right?"

"Not everything," Abby confessed. "I don't know what we're doing here. It's easier just to kill them. All this planning..." She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Mostly, she had never considered just how different this new weapon would make their fight. Her training felt obsolete, incomplete, irrelevant to the tasks at hand. "It's just too complicated."

"That's life."

"Maybe," she said, noncommital. "I wanted to hunt tonight. Take out some locals, low-levels at least."

"Not a good idea to signal that we're here." That had been the general consensus. Abby still didn't understand it; in L.A., they took down vampires all the time, right up to the day they rescued Blade, and neither Danica nor Asher altered their plans in the slightest. Why should Leung or this Feliar person take umbrage on behalf of a few familiars or low-level vamps?

As if reading her mind, King answered, "Because they're already worried Blade's still in the area." Abby bit her tongue to keep from saying anything.

"I'm going to get another glass of water," she disengaged from King, accepting the affectionate squeeze he gave her hand as she left again. The clock now read 2:01 a.m. _Damn_. She was late. When she picked up the PDA, she had a message already.

_DoubleEdge_: Update.

She sighed, writing back with the stylus:

_WhistlingDixie_: Scouting conference. Seems familiar.

_DoubleEdge:_ The rest?

_WhistlingDixie:_ Anxious. One week. You?

_DoubleEdge:_ Left Prague, en route.

_WhistlingDixie:_ Coming for the party?

_DoubleEdge_: Wouldn't miss it.

_Double Edge_ signed off, as did she. Chugging her glass of water, Abby replaced the PDA in the quiver and returned to her room. Sleep still eluded her, and King didn't wake this time when she crawled under the blankets next to him. In the early morning hours, she lay, alternately thinking of nothing and everything, eyes misted and then focused. She thought about a tactical plan for taking the convention center, then traced the scars on King's face. Two were new; one was the old mark below his left eye.

The conference center would be well staffed; nothing secret would be divulged to the doctors in attendance. That would be saved for the private party on Thursday, which, undoubtedly, would have an entirely familiar and vampire guest list. But they had to be sure of that before attacking in order to minimize civilian casualties.

He'd never said what had caused that old scar.

If Leung could be charmed as easily as Fox thought Feliar might be, perhaps she would put Alyssa to that job. As much as the woman loathed all discussion of her former life under her master, she still had the glyph and could still probably pass as a familiar, for mingling purposes if nothing else. And Leung had only recently moved up; it was possible he didn't know the glyph system that well.

His shoulder would still need time to heal, especially if King refused to take it easy for more than a few hours at a time.

What the vampires wanted with artificial blood was obvious enough, but what was being presented that merited so many traveling from the old world and relative security? The money California voted to spend on stem cell research aside, there weren't going to be any major breakthroughs announced. Perhaps they wanted to match up ambitious scientists and private and public benefactors?

Her head swam, dizzy with the possibilities. King rolled onto his side, pressing up against her warmth, unconsciously nuzzling her with his nose. Abby surrendered to vertigo, letting it overwhelm and exhaust her, relying on the steady breathing in her ear to center her. Her last thought before she succumbed was _he didn't want to_ She was too tired even to know hardly what that meant or to investigate why it cheered her.

* * *

"I don't remember calling you." 

"Look, sir, this is listed on my daily roster, and I have an invoice for a Rolm450 caller ID service repair for a Tony Baker." Gidge glanced pointedly at the white plastic nameplate on the glass cubicle. "You're Tony Baker." He moved his gaze purposefully along from the name tag on the wall to the phone at the desk. "That's a Rolm450." He clicked a button on his cell, which was disguised as one of those dumbbell-shaped phone testing devices. The phone on the desk rang, but no number came up. "That's a caller ID problem. Q.E.D."

"But I didn't make the request for the repair."

"Doesn't matter. Often, these things are just routine. Someone's secretary or intern comes around and checks the phones late at night, finds a few not working. See, I've got your pal Janice Owens over there, too," Gidge pointed a finger roughly in the direction of the desk belonging to that name and then picked her out on the invoice.

"Hah," Tony actually laughed, and Gidge caught the relief in it. Sure, it was too suspicious, the phone guy showing up right after some other imposters cleaned out a huge vampire nest egg, but he had to risk it. Fortunately, though he stood out, modern technology wouldn't. After he left, Tony could take apart the phone for all it mattered, he wouldn't find the bug; so long as he used the phone-and it would attract too much attention for him not to use it-Gidge would have the information from the caller ID. Once it was working, that was.

"It's gonna be ten-fifteen minutes for me to isolate the problem, maybe five-ten to fix the rest."

"You know what it is?"

"If it's the same thing Mrs. Owens had…"

"Miss," Tony corrected him, almost an automatic response, "Miss."

"Woo-hoo-hoo," Gidge laughed. "Man, didn't see _that_ one or anything."

"Yeah," Tony chuckled, lowering his voice, "I bet her caller ID was sabotaged, right?"

"I'm not supposed to give out sensitive, private client information," Gidge said loudly while tapping the side of his nose with his finger. He crawled under the desk to rearrange the jacks. "This, uh, might just be a tad distracting, so, if you could, you know, give me some space, man, that'd be great."

"Sure," Tony agreed, attempting to surreptitiously close his top desk drawer, which, from the brief glance Gidge had caught of it, was full of personal and business-related effects. Gidge spied the cell phone clipped to Baker's belt buckle. An LG C2200, not a popular model, but wouldn't you know…

"Hey, great phone, man," Gidge commented, turning his attention fully back to the jack in front of him. "Got one myself." He unhooked that exact model from the pouch at his side, double-checking as he handed it up that it was the same.

"How do you like it? Mine's too new for me to get used to just yet."

"Well, I like the camera feature, but the resolution's shitty. My wife bought it for me," he elaborated.

"Yeah," Tony laughed again. They were getting to be pals. "Mine, too." Tony, in the inevitable fashion of all people handed something to play with, began to investigate, searching through the pictures Gidge had saved. He heard a whistle as he split the telephone wire to insert the tracer within the plastic coat; Tony had found the nude photos. "Uh, is this your wife?"

"Yeah, isn't she beautiful?" Gidge said, inanely, distracted, pretending not to know that his 'wife' was naked in the pictures Tony was looking at. Baker sat down, hard, in his chair, surfing between the last three or so pictures Gidge had uploaded. The resolution _was_ shitty on the phone, so it masked the fact that girl on it wasn't always the same girl.

"She's lovely," Tony mumbled.

"Figure I ought to keep her on it. Remind me why I keep the damn thing when the battery dies on me every other day, you know?"

"Yeah," Tony sounded wistful. Good, there, he had the connection. He cut the plastic jack off the end, aligned the colored wires and crimped a new end on a few inches farther down, concealing the slit he'd made in the casing. The problem with phone bugs on the tapped person's end was that, traditionally, they'd been too large, too noticeable, too easy to remove. These new ones, however, he could slide into the wire and have barely a bulge. Cut the end off the cord, fix a new head on it, and no one would notice the cable was an inch shorter than it ought to be.

"How's that?" He called up to Tony. "Dial it from your phone or something, would you?" He smacked the red box with his phone in it. "This thing's on its last legs." From beneath the desk, he saw Tony unclip his cell and dial with his free hand. The dummy phone was still open to the porno pictures in his other hand.

"No good. It's not showing my name or even my number. I know I programmed this one in."

"The new one? You're sure?"

"Kept my old number."

"Damn, hang on," Gidge crawled out from under the desk, and picked up the phone, unscrewing the receiver cover and pulling at the wires. He made a show of twisting and fiddling with pliers, closing the cover, opening the back of the phone base, and repeating the process. Tony watched him, both phones open. He hit 'SEND' on his own. The caller ID showed nothing.

"Damn," Gidge went back under the desk with his pack. "Hey, can you do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Go to the next desk over and call from there. I want to see if this is purely an external line problem or if I need to do a complete rehaul."

"Sure thing." Tony walked away, putting both cell phones down on the desk, his on the right, the dummy on the left. Gidge groped for one cell phone, looking at it, closing it with a show of mistaken identity, then putting it back on the opposite side of the other one. Now, the dummy was on the right. The old bait and switch.

He withdrew from under the desk and saw the caller ID register nothing as Tony gave him the thumbs up from the cubicle directly across from him. He held up one finger-_wait_. Opening the base of the phone, he removed and replaced some wires, allowing the screen to light up again. That, he prided himself, had been real genius. Instead of messing with complicated algorithms related to caller ID, he'd simply turned the display screen off. He'd done it an hour and a half earlier when he'd visited a few other cubicles pretending to have problems with their phones, long before Tony Baker arrived at the office. To Tony, he nodded, gave the thumbs up back.

"It's funny," Tony said, coming back in. "I didn't notice there was a problem."

"Most people don't," Gidge confessed, conspiratorially. "Until some big wig can't get the number of the hooker he hired so he can screen it before the wifey picks up. Then we catch hell. But, uh, you didn't hear that from me," Gidge covered his mouth with one hand. Tony smirked, nodding. "There were a few others here that were fine," he nodded at the invoice still on Tony's desk. "Probably someone's idea of a joke."

"Stupid joke," Tony said, swallowing against a lump; he was clearly nervous, if relieved and overjoyed that he, specifically, hadn't been targeted. Just went to show what an idiot he was, Gidge figured.

"Well, I'm off to the next exotic location," he held out his right hand to shake Tony's, and reached for the right cell phone.

"Yours is on the left," Tony said quickly. "Put 'em down that way."

"Thanks," Gidge smiled, taking the one on the left, "that would have been a mess, huh?" He wagged the cell at Tony. "You should be more careful when you play with these. Pretty soon, everyone's going to have one, like the VX6000. Take care," Gidge waved, collecting his gear as he left. He rounded the corner, removing the battery and popping open the back of the phone with one swift spin of the miniature screwdriver attached to his keys. Waiting for the elevator with another man, he politely nodded at him, barely looking at what he was doing and getting on the next elevator that arrived with only a, "Could you hit lobby, please?"

The cell was back in one piece and in his bag when the doors opened again, and he feigned surprise when a breathless Tony caught up to him at the front entrance.

"Wait"

"Oh, hey, Tony Something wrong?"

"Think…we…got…these…mixed…up," Tony heaved, holding out the dummy phone. Gidge slowly, deliberately, fished for Tony's phone, opened it, eyes jumping open wide.

"Well, shit on me, you're right. Sorry about that, man." He handed it back without hesitation and accepting the other one in exchange. "Next time, keep a better eye on your stuff, man."

"You, too," Tony snapped. "Wiseass."

"My pleasure," Gidge bowed his head. "Cheers." He didn't turn around to see what Tony would do, just looked down at wrinkled piece of paper he'd pulled from the satchel at his waist. He walked in one direction two steps, shook his head, then went the opposite way. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of Tony retreating back upstairs, his cell phone out; his thumb moved back and forth over it a few times before he closed it. Then he was gone.

_Tony's checking it to be sure this time it's his._ Gidge chuckled to himself, stuffing the paper back in the leather bag. It didn't matter that the phone technically belonged to Tony. With the new card in it, that phone belonged to _him_. Just like the office phone.

"Should have listened to my advice, Tony."

All in all, not a bad start to the day.


	12. Of Enemies and Lovers

"We got it."

Fox came running up the interior stairs from the garage where she'd been practicing.

"You're sure?"

"I wouldn't lie to you, Fox, you know that," Stone turned his laptop to face her. Gidge's data upload displayed a host of calls made from the mobile phone of an Anthony Baker. A routine call was made to a San Diego number, judging from the area code, and the ID given the number from the cell was, simply,"F." It had only lasted ten seconds - about long enough for a quick answering machine message to play and have the person calling give up hope that the call was being screened. Feliar _was not_ at home.

"That easy? That _easy_?" Fox clenched her hands into fists; her whole body shook. Abby eased around her to examine the records.

"Looks like he put in a call to the Ritz-Carlton lobby." Alyssa recognized the number from their dummy room there.

Fox stared at the entry. "Is she staying there?"

Abby frowned and shook her head, trying not to sound too pessimistic. "Probably not, but someone is."

"Leung?"

"Could be. What's the other call to the Bay area? That's a 415," Abby tapped the screen.

"Cell phone, I think," Gidge's voice sounded from the laptop speaker. "Registered to a Fiona Masters."

"Masters? That's _rich_," Fox growled.

"She's sending a message," Abby concluded. "I think we might have a vampire on our hands now."

"Doesn't matter. She's dead either way."

"We stick with the plan - _your_ plan," Abby warned. "King makes nice, sees what she knows. Worse comes to worst, he shows off the tattoo and takes the chance that she doesn't know that Danica Talos is dead."

"Or," Alyssa considered, "he could say he'd been told to attend on her behalf, and didn't know where else to go when he found out they'd been dusted." Alyssa hugged herself. "It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for pets to be spared when hunters came." Abby heard the personal experience in that statement.

"We'll need records to show that King was in the hospital last week, just in case. Gidge?"

"Already on it. Should I change the name?"

"Keep it," Abby recommended, "But be sure that on the charts he's listed as having had the usual, okay?" The 'usual' meant bites with no bruising - no blood was ever lost to a bruise with a vampire - cuts, scrapes, scars, and, most importantly, a puncture wound from a syringe, explaining why King would be human when he met up with Feliar. That some of those injuries actually existed would only authenticate his cover.

She rounded on Fox. "You sure she'll buy this? If something goes sour, and he has to use this excuse, won't she be suspicious that he didn't try to contact anyone straight out?"

"She'll be suspicious," Fox grudgingly admitted, "but if he pretends to be relieved, she might buy it."

"Some pets got really scared when their masters died," Alyssa said, her mind clearly far away from the present.

"King's not that type."

"Then have him play up the sycophant. If she thinks he came up this way to find a new master, she'd definitely take him in." A fire blazed in Fox's eyes, and, not for the first time, Abby doubted her intentions. They needed information first. If Fox's revenge got in the way, they would be revealed, and any opportunity to hit the vamps with Daystar would be lost. Not to mention she could lose her partner on this, and she'd already lost enough of her old crew as was.

"Fox," Abby said, finally.

"What?"

"Remember what we're doing here."

"Oh, I _remember_," she clicked her tongue against her teeth, shaking her head. "You think I don't get it? I _know_ what we're supposed to be doing. Step one," Fox held up her index finger, "gather intel. Step two-" another finger snapped up-"strategy, backup, plan, plan, plan. Step three, insert, investigate, initiate. Step four," Fox gritted her teeth, "Kill. Them. All." She whirled and punched the wall, gasping for breath and collecting herself calmly in the space of fifteen seconds while the others watched.

"There," she breathed out, "better."

"Are we going to have a problem, Fox?"

"Not from me," she swore. "But you'll forgive me if I'm a little excited."

"Save it, then," Abby softened her tone and allowed a bit of malevolent glee to creep into her expression. "You'll get your chance."

Behind them, a door opened, and King exited the bedroom, dressed, in a word, _slutty_. King shuffled over to them, head bowed like a scolded puppy. He wore ripped black-on-black paint-spattered jeans, with holes just above and at the knees, one below his ass but only just barely, through which you could tell he wore no underwear - he'd sooner free-ball it than wear a g-string. Black Doc Martens were lightly laced, the pants haphazardly covering them or not in places; a gun metal gray shiny shirt under the longer-than-waist-length leather jacket completed the look. The only piece of clothing that actually belonged to him was his wife-beater undershirt, which he revealed by leaving the clubby shirt unbuttoned but tucked into the front of his jeans. Showing off his tight stomach was precisely what the vampire ordered, according to Fox.

"I feel naked," King groused, ruffling his hair. Fox had made him shave again, saying stubbled-manly wasn't the sort of wantonness Feliar would find attractive. When she'd seen the result of a shaven King, her enthusiasm for this plan skyrocketed; King, minus the beard, had rather a baby face.

"You don't have a problem being naked," Abby teased.

"True," he shrugged, "but generally it's because of something I can't control or in the pursuit of myth of the female orgasm. I don't know which to classify 'being bait,' under."

Abby smirked. "The former."

"The latter," Fox contributed.

King glanced from one to the other. "I'm fucked, aren't I?"

"In a manner of speaking."

* * *

"What are you having?" 

Abby adjusted her ear piece. From the number at the Ritz, and the address listed on Fiona Masters' cell phone account, they had managed, over two grueling days, to track down the woman attached to both. Fox became increasingly, disconcertingly focused as they narrowed in on Feliar, King practiced his lost dog look, accentuating the rakish, wanton appeal of the clothes Fox picked for him, honing his skills for this night, when he'd make contact. All this work, and _'what are you having?'_ was the best he could do? Abby stifled a groan.

"I'm not looking for company, boy," a snide response came a second after King spoke.

"I'm flattered, but I'm just looking for a _drink_." There was a lengthy pause, in which Abby's imagination conjured up the dark and severe woman from their surveillance. She would be sneering, ignoring King, acting haughty, superior. He, curiously enough, would probably be doing the same.

Still, she responded to his question. "It's a Bloody Mary."

"That's a _chick_ drink," King dismissed her. "I'll have two tequila shots and a bourbon, this much ice, this much bourbon."

"Disgusting," Feliar snipped.

"Says the woman paying ten-fifty for a V8."

"I prefer the texture to the tripe you've ordered. Much thicker, richer."

"So's semen," King riposted, a heavy sloshing sound signaling his drinks' arrival and quick consumption.

"Charming," Feliar complemented.

It was hard to get a bead on the vampire without being able to see her. Fox ruled out anyone being in the club with King. He could handle himself, truly, and someone listening too obviously, as she did now, would alarm their target. Still, seeing the woman would help her determine how well the evening was progressing.

"I've been known to have my moments."

"I think we have nothing else to say to each other," Feliar said with some finality, belied by the slightly hopeful way she ended, her voice raising almost in a question.

"There's plenty we could say. I could, for example, explain that I am, for all intents and purposes, single. Then you would say, 'What do you know, I'm a dry, withered, joyless cow who happens to be single.' 'Imagine that,' I say." King took a deep breath, held it, waited, and then, "Anytime now."

"Tell me, does this approach work on anyone?"

"You'd be surprised, and the answer to the question you're not asking is 'yes, more times than you in the past decade, grandma.'"

Abby bit her lip. It was, she supposed, part of his charm, this appalling ability to tell the most unpleasant truths and send up the ego of everyone else in the room, the better to leave his own unchallenged. Would it work on a vampire? They could be rather…testy when their personal style, manner, appearance, you name it, was called into question. King might be working the meat angle more than the bait angle without realizing it.

"It seems I am no match for your devilish wiles," Feliar said, voice dry with caustic sarcasm.

"I knew you'd see it my way. So, that just leaves the inevitable question."

"My name?"

"Your place or mine?"

"It might behoove you to know my name."

"It's not really necessary."

"Call me old-fashioned."

"Okay, well, if you're really that desperate, lay it on me."

"No."

_Great_, Abby thought. The evening was over before it could begin. Time for plan B? She wasn't looking forward to Plan B at all. She'd never been good at improvisation.

"Wow," King said, breathily, "you must just have men falling all over you."

"I might say the same about you."

"We _are_ in a drag bar." God, she'd laughed herself into tears when they'd found Feliar at this place. King had been a tad less than amused.

"So you've been attempting to piss me off for stepping on your territory?"

"I'm here to pick up the straight girls who like to go to gay bars."

Abby chuckled, perfectly picturing King's no-nonsense straight face as he told Feliar this. It hadn't worked too well on Blade, his sense of humor, but with women, as he'd recounted numerous times, it opened doors and performed miracles. Which was a good thing, because he'd better start praying for one with the way this was going.

"Filia."

"Sorry?"

"My name is Filia."

"Ah, from the Italian Filomena, meaning 'frigid.'"

"You don't give up easily, do you?"

"Hey, you are _always_ welcome to prove me wrong."

In her ear, Abby heard Fox sniggering. She was observing the club from the south entrance, tapped into the same feed from the microphone secreted in King's necklace. Abby clicked over to her mike, feeding it solely to Fox.

"Something funny, Fox?"

"He's good, girl. If you ever get tired of his mouth, I can find some uses for it."

"Cleaning your toilet, I hope," Abby grated, bristling. She switched off the communication channel to Fox and caught up with King and Feliar. When the channel opened, Feliar was laughing, though it did not sound at all pleasant.

"Aren't you going to tell me your name now?"

"I don't remember agreeing to that."

"It's traditional."

"You would know. You were probably there when they started it."

"Perhaps I should just go grab my walker and crawl back to my lace doilies and late show. Too much excitement, not good for the heart."

"You said it, not me." There was an audible scraping noise, even above the din of the club, as from a bar stool being shoved backwards with great force. "Say hi to Letterman for me," King toasted her.

"Surely you wouldn't let an old lady like me wander off into the night on my own?"

"I'm no boy scout."

"I rather didn't think you were. An escort, though, would be _lovely_."

"Does that mean you're going to pay me for this, too?"

"Consider yourself lucky to get 'this' at all."

"Funny, I was thinking the same thing."

"Coming?" Came a frustrated - angry? - sigh.

Another screeching, dragging noise, this one quicker, sharper, as though the person sitting literally leapt off the stool and it got caught in the inertia; that would be King, playing up phony eagerness. The music from the stage grew louder then softer suddenly, and Abby spied the pair stepping out onto the street from the bench she lay on. Feliar cast suspicious glances all around. Splayed out on the bench, Abby raised the thin, white, papery stick to her mouth and sucked on one tapered end. The smoke she exhaled and the goofy smile she gave to a passerby reassured Feliar - just another punk kid toking up in public because she was too high to know better.

They crossed the street, standing right by her on the corner to hail a cab. Abby reached out an arm towards them.

"You got a quarter, man? I left my bus fare on the," she giggled, "th-the bus."

"Take a cab on me," King flipped a coin at her, which she grabbed at and missed by a mile.

"An angel of mercy," Feliar said, disapprovingly. "You should not encourage such bottom feeders. A cab arrived, and she climbed in. "The Ritz-Carlton."

"Hang on a second," King retreated, walking back towards her on the bench, and retrieving the coin. He placed it in her open palm.

"Hey, thanks," Abby giggled genuinely when King's mouth ticked up in the corner.

"Coming, playboy?" Feliar called from the open door to the cab.

"Just wanted to get what I paid for," King called over his shoulder. To Abby, he said, "Watch. Now you see it," he held up his open palm with a quarter in it, closed his fist, opened it empty. "Now you don't."

"I feel you," Abby nodded, seriously, reaching out to touch his palm. "Weird. It was _like right there_" She maintained intense absorption with his hand, then her own, pretending not to notice the waggling eyebrow King directed towards his date as he slipped the joint easily from her fingers.

"Keep fighting the good fight," King patted her on the back and got in the cab. "May I interest you in a-" Feliar cut off his words by yanking hard enough on his undershirt to rip the collar. The cabbie sped off in a hurry, savvy enough to know that if his fare didn't get going in a hurry, a number of possibly illegal things would take place in his backseat.

Didn't matter, really. The switch had been made. Inside the joint was a replacement battery for King's communication devices. Abby lay back down on the bench, listening to the mike and looking at the quarter in her hands.

"That was fast," Fox's voice came first.

"You said she'd like him."

"She's going to _love_ him. Or kill him. I haven't decided."

"I wouldn't worry about it. Follow the cab."

"Stone's on it. You keep monitoring audio, I'm going to see who left the bar right after and what they're up to."

"Should we move on her tonight? It might tip them off to our presence."

"No, leave it to your partner for now. If he can get an invitation to the conference as her toy, we're in."

"We have five days until it starts."

"All the more reason to let nature take its course."

"And if she tries to kill him instead?"

"Plan B."

"Right. Happy hunting," Abby signed off, and picked up the conversation in the cab. Mostly, the transmission consisted of heavy breathing, noisy rustling of clothes, and, here and there, a low, distinctly female growling. She shifted, uncomfortably, on her bench, wondering who had it worse, King for being pawed at by a vampire - again - or her for having to listen. He was keeping up the ruse pretty well, regardless.

"My, what sharp teeth you have, grandma."


	13. Interlude 1: Night Follows Mourning

_End Game – Interlude 1: Night Follows Mourning_

Rating: R (sexual situations and discussion)

Author's Note: _End Game_ takes place roughly a week and a half after the events of _Blade: Trinity_. In an effort not to ignore that time passing entirely, I present the _Interludes_, _End Game_-associated side-stories and flashbacks. In deference to the TOS I will not post them as separate stories. I've not planned out all of them as yet, and they will be a mixed bag. Some will be character-driven introspection, some side-plot or background, still others will be PWPs, and if you don't know what that means, skip on ahead. Because this first Interlude, _Night Follows Mourning_, is definitely a PWP (among other things). A present for you Abby/King fans with a little bit of how I see their dynamic thrown in for good measure.

Enjoy.

"Lie back," she whispered against his lips, and, for once, he complied without comment. Tentatively, he leaned down, first dropping to one elbow, then the other, then easing himself the last few inches until his head rested on the pillows. He readjusted, chin nudging forward as he settled comfortably, signaling he was ready when she was.

In the dark, the bruises on his abdomen weren't as defined, so she would have to tread carefully so as not to hurt him. No loud noises, no bright lights, no squeezing, no pain. That simple and that complicated all at once. His eyes were dull from drugs yet tracked her every move as she shed clothing beside the bed. First, her shoes and pants, then her shirt and hair tie, which left her in a sporty camisole top and matching gray underwear and socks. These she left on and sat beside him on the bed.

"Just let me do the work, okay?" She kissed him, convincingly, and he uttered an agreeable groan, squeezing her hand once. Still sweeping his mouth with her tongue, she drew his arm onto her lap, caressing it cautiously so as not to aggravate the reopened wound on his shoulder. Her other hand traveled to his pants, forgoing the buttons and zipper and sliding deftly underneath, between his skin and the elastic of his boxers.

"Mmm?" She hummed against his lips. They were usually more articulate, King impressively so. Tonight was different. Words felt heavy in her mouth and unnecessary when a look or touch or hum would suffice.

"Mmm," he sighed and gripped her waist, rubbing her belly with his thumb as she closed over his cock with her hand. They kissed again, mouths open wider, tongues more adventurous and erratic, but maintaining the same rhythm, slow, steady, lingering, longing. A mournful celebration of the fact they were still alive, held too soon after the deaths of so many close friends to be quick or erotic or hard.

After a few minutes of this, she straightened, removing her hand to better remove his pants and shoes. She swiveled, facing away from him and leaning over to accomplish this, staying in the one spot because he could touch her that way. And he did, his hand tracing circles down her stomach, over the rise of her pubis, skipping her underwear and continuing on down her thigh to her knee then working his back up again.

"Lift up a bit for me," she instructed, kindly, aware of how sore a task this was for him, rewarding him with more petting when he complied. She set his shoes on the floor at the foot of the bed and shrugged his boxers and pants off his legs, draping them with dignity over the footboard. Now he was naked, his expression proving him sharply aware of this fact.

"You, too, Whistler." His voice was honey thick, oozing unwilling from his sore throat, squeezed out by the invisible hands that left red finger prints on his skin. She ran one hand up from his ankle, over the crest of his knee and hip bone straight on up to his chin, kissed him again, and stood up so he could see her completely.

"Watch me."

"Yes," though he wasn't really talking to her. _Yes_, his sharp gaze was saying, _yes, watch. _He liked to watch her; it was no onerous obligation. Crossing her arms over her front, she hitched up the hem of her undershirt and lifted it over her head, the elastic under her breasts clinging until the last moment and then letting her chest go with a gratuitous jiggle.

The panties went next. She had never figured out how to remove them gracefully, preferring to let her partner do it whenever they were intimate. He didn't seem to mind how she did it, awkwardly stepping first out of one side then the other, balancing perfectly yet feeling ready to topple at any moment. King smiled, tiredly, sorely, beckoning her closer so he could curve his hand around from her pelvis to her ass, nudging her back onto the bed beside him.

"Better," he rumbled as she pressed against his side. Because of his shoulder, she supported her weight on one bent elbow, reaching immediately to dance the fingertips of her other hand over the mogul ridges of his abdomen. His hand, flat between her shoulder blades, brought her closer still, and he caught her earlobe with his lips.

"You still have your socks on."

She snorted. So she did. She sat up to tug them off, and his hand fell along the arch of her spine. A moan escaped her as his fingers spread the skin on either side of her vertebrae, massaging upwards as she leaned her weight backwards on her hands. It didn't stop, he didn't stop, and his fingers found her neck, thumb and forefinger pinching the nape under her hair.

All this he could do with just the one hand. Amazing, yes, but why settle for one when she could have two with a change in position? Kicking upwards, she rolled into a crouch and straddled his legs, walking up his body on her knees. A couple of times, he bent his knees outwards, forcing her legs farther apart and lower over him.

"Be careful with me," he smirked when she reached his hips. "I'm fragile."

"I know," she croaked, his humor touching too closely the truth for comfort or play. From this position, eyes fully adjusted to the faint light, all his injuries stood out as tar stains did on the highway; a road map of pain, trekking from the tattoo on his stomach upwards to the stitches and scars on his face.

"Don't stop, Abby." He lifted his hips to nudge her labia, the pressure delicious, frustrating and soothing all at once. Her back arched involuntarily, and she braced her hands on her thighs, remembering at the last moment she couldn't support her weight on his body as she was used to.

So many things new, different, changed, but the essentials remained the same. He gripped her waist with his large hands, shifting them forward and massaging her clit with his thumbs. In return, as she rocked her hips in time with his fingers, she clawed lightly on his thighs. Whereas he would typically loom over her, she bent forward and stretched, supporting her weight on her forearms and tilting her head up for a kiss.

Her hair fell in his face; he huffed at it, but it ended up caught on their tongues anyway. His mouth tasted coppery and dry, and she avoided the raw patches on the inside of his cheeks and gums, inviting, teasing his tongue into her mouth, a safer, less abused playground. The kiss ended with a moan, hers, as he slipped a finger inside her, then another, curling them against sensitive folds.

She mouthed his Adam's apple, tonguing it as he swallowed, distracted from the pleasure he was giving her by that she gave him. It vibrated when he growled appreciatively. She employed the same technique to the rest of his body that she did to his cock: lips, tongue, suction. No teeth, no biting. Ever. He didn't like it, and she couldn't fault him for that. Around the neck especially, she kept her teeth well away from his skin.

Arched over him, she barely noticed his level of arousal while lost to the sensations of his rough palms on her body. When it became unbearable, the separation of only inches, she ground her hips in a circle, lower and lower, questing for the pleasurable friction of his hardness against her. Surprise. She stopped, opening her eyes and leaning back, shocked.

"What's wrong?"

He sighed, rubbing his eyes, dragging his hand down his face, roughly tugging on his beard. "I'm pretty fucked up, Whistler." His lids were heavy, shaded with embarrassment, frustration, disappointment - none of which she was used to from him, not during sex. Self-deprecating in all else, in the bedroom, his ego never faltered. Nor did his anatomy.

"Does this hurt?" Maybe she'd rushed it, so in a hurry to fuck him and feel normal again she overlooked something. All her caution for naught.

"No, not that," he laid one hand over his stomach, covering one of the nastier bruises there. "I think it's the painkillers. I feel pretty groovy."

"But don't feel much else?"

"Give the lady a prize." The timbre of his voice shaded to disgust and irritation, so far from his typical off-the-cuff and deadpan good humor that it made her choke with worry.

"Fuck."

"Your wish would be my command if I had any choice in the matter."

Dejected, she climbed off, legs tucked under her, feeling a pout coming on. She ought to get dressed again, go check on Zoe, find her own bed among the new crew, and pretend this didn't happen. Easier for both of them and it would save explanations in the morning.

He laid one hand high on her thigh, thumb idly stroking the inside of her leg. "We can still fool around if you need to."

"If I need to," she repeated, bland and indifferent. She needed something all right, but it was an oversimplification to believe that an orgasm was it. "Never mind." Without looking at him, she edged off the bed; she'd sooner walk around it, ignoring his eyes on her, than go over him to get to her clothes.

His hand caught her wrist before both feet were on the floor. "Where are you going?"

"To sleep," she answered, shrugging.

"Stay here then. Plenty of room." It was a queen-sized bed. Though undersized for his height, there was space enough for two bodies side-by-side. Room to spare, really.

"But…" She couldn't force out a coherent counter to this logic. None of their friends were around to find out and tease them. She wondered if any of them had ever known. Sommer had, for sure, because they girl-talked about the woes and wonders of screwing coworkers, her and King, Sommer and Dex. Dex would have never let up – he always thought she was too serious. Hedges, too, but his jokes would have been tinged with envy.

King's thoughts jogged alongside hers. "No one here knows anything about us. Blank slate, Abby."

She considered this. Caulder's wife, Alyssa, had shown her this room when Caulder and King returned from the hospital. No other had been mentioned save for the one Zoe now occupied. There were no assumptions, no camaraderie yet established that would lead to cat calls and knowing smiles. Caulder had a wife; he slept with her. She had a partner; she could sleep with him. Only she and King would know it was the first time. Why not?

Resolved, she worked first at freeing the covers from underneath him without jostling him too much. A mild concussion left him sensitive to light and noise; too much abuse would slow recovery or lead to relapse. Maybe it was better things fizzled, no matter how flighty and itchy her body felt.

King threw his arm out to the side, welcoming her against his left, uninjured shoulder as she got into the bed once more. Cuddling with him or anyone was a foreign concept. She told him so.

"Never?"

"Never." All her teenage hookups were exploratory, tinged with the kink of panic lest a parent walk in. Adult liaisons were there to serve a need not to nurture a weakness for intimacy; in this, she and her father were in perfect agreement.

"Doesn't surprise me much."

She glared at him. "What does _that_ mean?"

"You're not the romance type is all. Hey, have I _ever_ complained about that?"

"Watch it," she grumbled, secretly pleased. It was why they worked, after all. They came together to burn off tension and attraction; he made her laugh at herself, she gave his mouth a different kind of exercise than its usual. Mutual benefit. Win-win. Symbiosis, not dependence.

Neither spoke while she fidgeted, trying to get comfortable. It was something she'd never believed in or understood the need for - post-coital heroines snuggling up to their partners, nestling in just-so, heads tucked on shoulders, legs intertwined, that whole nonsense. It was always so perfect, so necessary for fictive characters. Reality was quite different. King's body was unyielding muscle, hardly a fluffy or ergonomic rest for her head. And where the _hell_ did she put her other arm?

King started chuckling quietly, then not-so as she continued to fight. She settled on the pillow - _not_ his shoulder; leg on top of his at the knee - _not_ at the hip; arm under her pillow - _and_ his arm. By the time she stopped thrashing about, he was holding his stomach, gasping with pained laughter.

"Jesus, Whistler, you're going to kill me."

"Keep it up, and I might." She smothered irritation; she couldn't beat that smugness out of him until he healed up. Then she would kick his ass.

"See all you've been missing? Cuddling, spooning, morning sex? You've been living a shadow of a life there, Abby."

"I've had sex in the morning," she said, defensively.

"Not sex-in-the-morning," he corrected her, playfully tweaking her nose. "Morning sex, dummy."

"I'm never going to understand you."

"Morning sex is when you wake up the next morning after sleeping with someone and go at it."

It begged the question, and since he was going to tell her anyway, she asked, "How's that different from just sex?"

One corner of his mouth twitched. "Ask me if you still don't get it in the morning."

"If you can get it up."

"Ouch." But he was smiling. "Goodnight to you, too."


	14. Good Surprise or Bad Surprise?

"What's the status?"

Gidge didn't raise his head off his arms over the video link, just mumbled his words into them. "We got through Leung's personal e-mail account. I did some digging. Got some interesting finds."

"Do tell." Fox called from the kitchen as she fished a fresh ice pack out of the freezer and put it over her left eye. She'd come in at five in the morning, claimed to have lost the fight but won the war, dropped some pieces of plastic onto the kitchen table, and headed straight for their stash of painkillers. Since then, she'd had about three the size of the tip of Abby's pinkie, and she wobbled slightly when she walked.

Gidge waited for her to stop weaving in her chair, then gave up and buried his head back into his arms.

"Seems our little familiar's been a bad boy."

"Gidge, the essentials, _please_?" Not for the first time did Abby miss her old crew. Hedges explained everything in detail, Sommer had to be told to slow down, and Dex almost never exaggerated. Between Stone lone-wolfing, Fox tripping, Alyssa reminiscing, Caulder pondering, and Gidge play-acting, she didn't feel as though she'd learned more than one or two substantial things a day since joining up with them.

"Leung's got two kids."

"So? He's married, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Gidge tilted his head up, smiling shyly on the monitor; he had too good a secret to be drawn out quickly.

Fox came to the rescue. "Spit it out, Gidge, or I'll make you a peyote special." She winked her good eye at Abby as Gidge blanched. "Bad trip," she mouthed.

"Hey!" Gidge grumped, indignant, and grudgingly continued. "Leung's got two kids, both boys, aged seven and fifteen. But those aren't the only kids he and his wife have had."

Alyssa stopped circling choke points on the blueprints for the convention center. At the sink, Caulder surreptitiously turned the faucets off and slowly scrubbed dishes from that morning's breakfast. Fox lost color from everywhere but the red knot on her face. Abby stared at the screen, still unsure how to feel.

"I think I know why he's gotten to be Feliar's favorite familiar - woo-ee, try saying that three times…"

"Gidge!" Fox shrieked, slapping the table hard. Hundreds of miles away, Gidge jumped upright in his chair. Closer to them, Alyssa also started, swallowing heavily as Gidge, guiltily, told them in plain English that their worst, most awful suspicions were true.

"I think he's been feeding babies to his master."

"That's _sick_," Alyssa clapped a hand over her mouth as though she might be ill herself. Her complexion was the right color for it - a pale olive shade that rose up from her throat - and she was heaving slightly with each breath. Abby caught Caulder staring at her, intense concern underwriting his usual heavy concentration. Something there, perhaps? She filed it away for later.

"Where's your proof?" Fox's cold tone and hard logic settled her stomach. She banished memories of bodies trussed up, floor to ceiling, leaking blood like coolant from the underside of a car, and focused on Gidge's information.

"Mrs. Katherine Leung has had, wait for it, _eight_ pregnancies besides those of her two boys since marrying our boy."

"So?" Fox tapped her lower lip. "Something like thirty percent of all women lose pregnancies they're not even aware of having. She might just have known."

"Fox, I'm not just talking she got _knocked up_ that many times."

"You mean she delivered."

"Every time. All boys, too."

Graveyard humor tickled her, and, had she not caught herself, Abby might have laughed aloud. For some reason, she could imagine King's reaction to this news. _Guy's got strong Y swimmers, good for him._ God, if her inner monologue was starting to sound like him, she was obviously going nuts. Or missing him, but she didn't really think that was the case. He'd only been gone a few hours – she'd only just started to enjoy not having him around, so it was clearly too soon to regret the loss of his unique brand of company.

"What are the ages of death and order of births including Leung's living children?"

"There are two that preceded the oldest, both died less than a month after birth. After that, there's three between the older boy and the younger one, and three after."

"Fucking hell," Fox breathed, astounded. "She kept trying that long?" Abby did the math. Leung was forty-seven; if his wife was about the same age, she'd have been giving birth to her last three pregnancies all in her forties.

"Why would anyone put themselves _through_ that?" Alyssa gulped between her fingers. Caulder appeared to have decided one way or another about his wife, nodded to himself in the kitchen, toweled off his hands, and moved to sit next to her. They didn't look at one another, only held hands and stared at Fox and the back of the laptop where Gidge waited to be prompted for more information.

"How old is his wife?"

"Turns forty-five this year. I guess she really wanted a girl." The joke fell flat, and even Gidge could appreciate the bad taste of it. "Sorry."

Fox was not appeased. Both her eyebrows dipped furiously, her one visible eye flashing darkly. She let the ice pack fall away, and the angry swell of her other eye made the hideous expression she wore that much more severe.

"Don't shoot the messenger, Fox," Gidge squeaked, digital distance not providing him the slightest sense of comfort under the power of her glare.

"What explanation does the hospital or the police give for the deaths?" Her voice was tight, controlled, and insistent, clinical and distant yet intense and dangerous. Eight was _a lot_ for them just to ignore, unless the police were in on it - and, Abby thought, dejectedly, they might be. The cops in L.A. had been.

"The first two were so quick they attributed it to SIDS."

"SIDS?"

"Sudden Infant Death Syndrome," Fox snapped, though her rancor was not directed at Abby. This was her field of specialty, or was to have been if she had ever completed medical school. "It's bullshit."

"In this case, yeah, but--"

"It's _bullshit_, Gidge," Fox cut him off. "Nine times out of ten, the parents are to blame. They get away with murder or neglect because there's been a tragedy. No one's going to attack them if they've lost a child."

"It's a legitimate syndrome, Fox," Alyssa corrected her, whisper-quiet. Fox looked over the laptop at the other woman and appeared stricken, the force of her fury draining, horror and shame replacing it. It was a new look for Fox, embarrassment.

"Yeah, sure," Fox cooed, her tone light and reassuring, "but it's much rarer than figures would have you believe. The numbers are something like one in two thousand these days. They'd have to be extraordinarily ignorant about SIDS to have lost two kids to it." She cleared her throat, some of her deflated anger returning when she looked at Gidge. "What about the others?"

"The ones in between the two kids who're alive all made it for at least a little over a year."

"Which comfortably moves them out of the range of statistical probability for SIDS." Fox drummed her nails on the table, impatient and expectant. Gidge did not disappoint her or dare to keep her waiting.

"Two died from blood loss."

"You're shitting me." The vampires would let that be in a medical report? Better they'd been abducted and murdered than to confess _that_ where someone could find it.

Fox pursed her lips and made an educated guess. "Hemophilia?"

"Hey, give the almost-doctor a prize." Gidge grinned without mirth, clicked through some screens on his end, and read off the analysis he'd found in a dull monotone. " 'Patient appears to have been homozygous recessive for hemophilia B.' They did one of those gene workups or something on both of the babies."

"Karyotypes," Fox supplied.

"Yeah, that."

"B's extremely rare. Only fifteen percent of all hemophiliacs have it."

"And there's no artificial clotting factors for type B."

"Not _yet_." Fox was understandably defensive of her profession, and again Gidge backed down. "That still only accounts for half of these babies. What about the last four?"

"The one born right before the kid who's still alive died two years after his brother was born. Hemophilia again. The last three were listed as having severe mutations incompatible with life. I gather that's all Mrs. Leung knew."

"She's older, she might believe that she or her husband became dangerously infertile, perhaps due to exposure."

"Right, so, open and shut."

"Except we don't know why the vampires were taking those babies."

"Sure we do," Abby looked for the speaker and found everyone staring at her. She'd been thinking of the men and women in the farm again, drifting in and out of Fox and Gidge's back and forth second-hand diagnosis, and she must have spoken aloud without realizing.

But they shouldn't have been surprised. With all the years of hunting accumulated between them, they had learned enough about vampire feeding habits to know why innocent, barely year-old baby was a rare delicacy. If not immortality, Leung could at least earn money from his vampire master by selling off his kids one at a time.

"Disgusting." Fox growled, lost in her own thoughts.

"Agreed. Gidge?"

"Yeah-huh?"

"What about the boys the vampires left behind?"

"They're both healthy as far as I can tell." He disappeared from view, audio feeding them his rapid clicking and typing until he returned. "I take it back. The older kid was treated three months ago for a fainting spell."

"Fainting spell?" Snapped out of her funk in a hurry, Fox slid to the edge of her chair, gripping it tight to keep from flying at the screen.

"This kid's got more medical coverage than the President, folks. I almost stopped reading before I got to this last visit to the emergency room. He's been in and out of hospitals for everything from bumps on the knee to a broken arm. Methinks Mom's a little protective."

"Not unreasonably," Alyssa sniffed, offended by Gidge's tone like the good den mother she was.

"But the fainting spell…hemophilia again?"

"Unknown at this point. Blood work was scheduled, tests run, no abnormalities as far as they could tell except for a slightly elevated percentage of misshaped er…ery…help, Fox?"

"Erythrocytes. Red blood cells," she explained and went on without a pause. "They think he's got _anemia_?"

"Something like. Which would explain why the vamps didn't want him. Not enough iron for their RDA."

"Christ," Fox slapped the ice pack over her eye and held it there, bracing her arm on the edge of the table. "They've got every fake disease in the book to explain the healthy dead kids, and the only ones Leung got to keep were the sick ones."

"_They _nothing," Abby chewed on her lower lip. _They_ hadn't killed those kids, _Leung_ had. His wife was either complicit in the scheme, which was hard to imagine; or she was a mess; or she was the most stupidly optimistic woman on the planet. Fucking vampires, inflicting that much damage, as always without care or concern. All that mattered was blood. "Cocksuckers," she said under her breath for good measure.

"Agreed," Fox moaned, wincing as she put a little more pressure on the pack against her eye. "So, what do we do about Leung?"

"Put him in a hole with his boss."

"I've got _that_ bitch," Fox smiled, toothily. "I don't do humans."

"I'm flexible," Abby shrugged. Truthfully, she hated having to battle her own kind as well as the vampires, but she could do it. That was the good thing about killing familiars: they were never innocent and they always deserved it.

"So, what now?" Alyssa folded her arms over her breasts and tapped her index finger above her elbow. "How does this information help us? Do you think Leung knows where the plant in Marin County is?"

"Odds are," Abby nodded. Who better to know than the guy who ran Biomedica's public side? "We can't lay hands on him until the conference starts."

"Too risky with that much security. Fucking Arnie," Gidge chimed in sourly.

A door slammed two floors below, and a minute later Stone appeared, jogging tiredly up the interior staircase. Hair windblown and matted from salt water deposits, his entire posture speaking of exhaustion, Stone went first for a bottle of water and an energy bar before collapsing in one of the dining room chairs.

"Tell me something, Fox - hey, what happened to your eye?"

"Never mind. What's on your mind, Eli?"

"Do women have more blood than men?"

"Just the opposite, why?"

Eli sighed, sagging against the back of his chair, neck braced on the top, eyes pointed at the ceiling. "Because that's who the vampires are going for."

"Women?"

"Yeah."

"_Specifically_?"

"Yes, Fox, women _especially_." Stone pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyelids together. Red lines on his forehead and cheekbones still showed the impression from his diving mask. He'd been under a long time.

Gidge groaned. "That means they like babies and women. Who on _earth_ likes babies and women? I mean, women I get, but sheesh, kids?"

"I like women," Caulder hugged Alyssa. "And babies, too."

All right, that was _it_. Abby opened her mouth to speak but Caulder was faster.

"Yes, we're pregnant."

With the news out in the open, even the unpleasantness of their earlier conversation couldn't dim Alyssa's smile.

"Say what? Alyssa! Alyssa! Damn it, turn the screen around so she can hug me!" Fox wore an ebullient grin of her own; of course, she knew - she was the closest thing to a doctor they had. Complying with Gidge's request, Fox tilted the laptop away, and Alyssa, obligingly, hugged the display.

"Congrats, folks," Eli cheered, wearily pumping one fist in the air.

"Timing could be better." Alyssa's false and transparent disappointment evaporated with that one comment. "Could be worse."

"Worse than being pregnant?" Fox mused to herself in an off-key lilt that made Abby shiver. "Tell yourself that when you deliver." The sarcasm didn't quite match either, but she dismissed it. Fox had her reasons to be weird about kids.

By unspoken consensus, the task at hand took a backseat to planning around this new contingency. They would wait to hear any news from King, track down names and addresses from the boats Stone had monitored in the bay and from the IDs Fox had pinched from the familiars who'd roughed her up.

With that much to do and with the big announcement just made, Abby conveniently forgot to mention they would be expecting a visitor in a day or two.


	15. Talk is Cheap, Information Priceless

"Hello, hello?"

The static crackling stirred her, jarringly, out of sleep, even though the voice speaking wasn't that loud. It took her a moment to recognize the sound for what it was, and then Abby seized her headset mike.

"King?"

"Live and uncensored." There was water running in the background, but it was a distant, persistent sound. Meaning Feliar was occupied, but not he.

"Everything go all right?"

He hesitated. "Define 'all right.'"

"Did she make you as a spy?"

"Let's just say we had a nice long chat about my tattoo."

Abby grinned, teasing him, "Then she got that far at least."

"Oh, no, she got farther," King poked right back. "I'll give you a hint: I'm not sitting down right now, and I don't expect I will be for a while. And," he sounded more disgruntled as he went on, "you better cut your fingernails before I get back."

"Why?"

"Take a wild fucking guess, Abby. And don't laugh."

"You agreed to this."

"You pushed me."

"You don't _need_ to be pushed, King. Anyway, enough, what did you find out?"

"Not much, yet. I don't think she trusts me."

"Wonder why?" Abby said aloud, then, "Forget it. What did you learn?"

"There's only a few familiars and her in the hotel that I saw. The guys are walking stereotypes, and half had the glyphs right on their hands."

"Between the thumb and index finger?" That was a common place to find it.

"Yeah."

"And what's this about stereotypes?

"Big guys, definitely been eating their spinach."

"Like you-big or like Jarko-big?" Outside of television pay-per-view smack-downs, she'd never seen anyone as massive as Jarko Grimwood. If there were more than one of them running around the conference, confidence in her abilities wouldn't cut it. They'd need more muscle.

"Jarko-big. I didn't get a chance to see them in the locker room, so I have no idea if they're me-big. Me heap big, in case you forgot."

She smiled, biting her lower lip; had he been in the room, she would have given herself away completely. She cleared her throat, coming back around to business. "Any clue who they belong to?"

"Weeell, the _pretty_ ones are hers," King mused, "and the ugly ones are from out of town. Those guys don't stay here."

"They must represent the visitors from overseas. Gidge has a sheet of private planes that were chartered through SFO, some of which he's linked to your new girlfriend."

"Hey, don't be like that."

She sniffed, trying to pretend she didn't know what he meant. "Like what?"

"My _new_ girlfriend has a little too much in common with my _old_ girlfriend for my taste." It was hard to imagine a woman who could match Danica Talos in King's low esteem, but she had a sneaking suspicion that one hedonistic, psychotic vampire vixen wasn't all that different from another.

"What are you going to do?"

"Stick with her I guess. How many days till the conference?"

"Four."

"Christ, it's only been a _day_? Can I come home _yet_?"

"Get a grip, King."

"I tell you what, Abby."

"What?"

"Next time, you can swap with me. I'll sit around and do the _boring_ Sherlock Holmes routine, and you can be a vampire's bitch for a few days."

"You're better at it than me. You have more experience."

There was a pause; she heard him take a deep breath. "That was cold, Whistler."

"Sorry. There've been some discouraging developments here."

"Such as?"

"We got some ugly news about Leung." _Way_ ugly, in California parlance. As detachedly and professionally as she could, she related the details Gidge presented to them last night and Fox's commentary on it.

King whistled. "That's messed up."

"You have a talent for understatement."

"I have many talents."

"And Alyssa's pregnant."

"Ouch," he said, cheerfully. "Bad timing."

"She was wigging out when Gidge told her about Leung."

"That's fair. Underneath my calm, stoic façade, I was wigging when I agreed to do this."

It was the third time he'd complained about this assignment. Any teasing repartee they built up vanished as she was silent, considering this.

"Whistler? You haven't fallen asleep on me, have you?"

"I'm here," she whispered, then, more strongly, "You're okay, right?"

There was static from a rush of air, like King snorting into the receiver. She understood his incredulity and amusement: she'd almost sounded _worried_ about him

"I'll live. I might even have a date later. I'm looking forward to it."

"Where are you going?"

"Haven't heard, but I think it's business, so that's good news for us. Leung might be there. I think I heard his name mentioned."

"When?"

"Tomorrow, or today, what day _is_ it?"

"Been up all night?"

"Do I need to answer that?"

"It's Monday."

"Tomorrow, then."

"Did she give a reason why she wanted you to meet him?"

"I'm not meeting him. Not officially. I doubt she'll talk much in front of me. I can get a good look at him though. I'll _remember_ him."

His words were clipped and terse, hinting at violent urges as yet unrealized in flesh. She was reminded of his recent behavior towards Zoe, how distressed he'd been over her welfare of late. Children in danger, a sore spot he shared with Fox. She catalogued it as a negative for both of them in the running columns she kept in her head.

"Fox might beat you to him if she's not too busy with Feliar. She looked pretty keen on destruction tonight."

"Oh, shit, I almost forgot."

"What?"

"She might know Fox is around. People have come in and out since Saturday morning acting pretty squirrelly."

"Okay," Abby thought this out. "She got into a fight with some of the familiars from the club. She pinched some credit cards, drivers' licenses and stuff." In Fox's scant positive column, she'd noted this: _pretty decent pickpocket_. "Give us a call if they're onto her. She's not going to sit out unless she's made." And even then, who knew?

"If I can."

"What about the missing surfers and hobos? Has Feliar given any hints she knows where they are?"

"Oh, she knows," King intoned, sarcasm dripping off every word. "She's holding a vampire picnic, Whistler. You think she's just going to bring the fruit salad?"

"Fuck you, King."

"Right, because apparently that's all I'm good for."

"You have your moments."

"I remember," he said, bitterly. "I should go. I have another call to make."

"King," she blurted out, suddenly anxious that he shouldn't leave on their usual pseudo-aggressive note.

"Yeah?"

"Watch your ass."

"Not much of it left at this point, but I appreciate the thought. Say hi to the squirt for me."

And he was gone. Reluctantly awake, Abby sat up on her bed to find Zoe standing in the doorway.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine," Abby answered her, faking a smile. She didn't bother to ask how Zoe knew it was King. Zoe just knew things, sometimes. Abby envied this talent, this intuition, and wondered when adults lost it.

"Is he coming back?"

"You know it, kiddo." She held her arms out to Zoe, and the girl walked towards her and sat on the bed, hugging her. "You all right?"

"I don't want you to leave me."

Surprised, Abby pulled away to look in Zoe's eyes. "I'm not going to leave you, Zoe. I promise."

Eyes bright and dry, Zoe betrayed no sign of weakness, worry, or melancholy. "I don't want anyone to leave any more." _Oh_, Abby realized, hugging Zoe again. _Right_.

"King will be back."

"What about the other guy?" Abby thought about it for a minute. Oh, _him_, the _other_ guy. Zoe didn't even remember his name.

"Blade? He'll be around, I'm sure."

"I want to show him."

"Show him what?"

Zoe stuck out her chin, raising it proudly. "That I can be bad, too."

"You should be careful, you might scare him." And this wasn't a lie, Abby rationalized. Some days, Zoe scared _her_. "Let's go get some water and get you back to bed, okay?"

Zoe nodded, taking her hand as she slid off the front of her bed. They turned into the kitchen to find Fox there, posture rigid and attentive. In a heartbeat, Abby knew why.

"You heard?"

Fox nodded. "Anything new?"

"Not much." She took out two bottled waters from the fridge, handed one to Zoe and scooted her off. "Go on back to bed, Zoe."

Zoe hesitated, dragging her feet for a few steps before giving in. Abby waited until her door closed before she turned back to Fox.

"King says the familiars are all huge, body-builder types."

"Smart move on their part," Fox snarled, stubbing out a cigarette butt into an ashtray. Abby blinked at her. She hadn't even realized Fox smoked. Fox noticed her astonishment - she'd never been a very good actor. "I quit ages ago, right after I dropped out of med school." Her eyes narrowed as she removed another cigarette from a nearly fresh pack. "Old habits, like old friends, die hard."

"Kick one, kick the other?" She looked at the ashtray. The previous cigarette, barely half-way smoked, still smoldered.

Fox grinned. "Let us hope so."

Abby sipped absently at her water as she watched, fascinated and repulsed, as Fox puffed heartily on her cigarette. It was an addiction she never understood, so pointlessly destructive, invasive, and_ per_vasive; smokers you could spot - and smell - at a distance. She preferred the anonymity of a healthful lifestyle.

Again, Fox stubbed out her cigarette before it burned down past half its length.

"Why do you do that?"

"Control, honey," Fox ground the stick into the ash until it bent and broke, dropping the squashed pieces into the glass dish. "Addiction implies a loss of control, physical, psychological, spiritual. I am _never_ out of control."

Abby disagreed, but she kept it to herself. "King said you might have been spotted."

Fox raised one eyebrow at this, pausing and posing with a fresh cigarette between her index and middle fingers. "Is that so?"

"Your tattoo, maybe. It's noticeable."

"Hmm," Fox hummed, bringing a cheap pink plastic lighter to the end of her third cigarette. Flame popped out of the metal end of the lighter with a _chuh-wip_, and the end of the cig glowed. She took a long drag, a full breath's worth, held it for ten seconds, tilted her head up to the ceiling and expelled gray smoke in one long stream. Then she stubbed this last one out, too.

"I'm done then, am I?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Give it a few days. We'll see how it goes."

Fox shrugged at this pronouncement, and Abby stilled a shudder that wanted to work its way from her shoulders down her spine. She couldn't get a bead on Fox. She was mental; she was clinical. She was excitable; she was methodic. She seethed; she _planned_. This last attribute worried her most.

"Don't do anything stupid, Fox. Stay in for a couple of days. Let's get you clear. You can still make it to the conference." In deference to her sympathies, she would find a way to use Fox. Not as a fighter - her pitiful appearance as a result of a run-in with mere humans ruled her out for that - but there had to be some way her expertise could contribute to the take-down to come.

"I was thinking about that," Fox tapped her fingernail against her upper teeth. "You still want to use Daystar, don't you?"

"Yes." Absolutely. If they had to worry about line-backer familiars, the least they could do was eliminate the vampires first.

"What your little virus needs is a better vector."

"A what?"

Fox grinned, biting girlishly on the tip of her index finger. "A better way to distribute the virus. Aerosol infections are all well and good for an instantaneous local response, but if you want this thing to travel home to vampire nests, you're going to have to adapt its method of delivery."

"Huh," was about as articulate as she felt confronted with this problem. Why hadn't Sommer ever mentioned this? Perhaps because the doctor had enough on her plate getting the thing to work in the first place.

"I'll suggest a few things to Caulder when he gets up. A blood-born vector would work for inoculations."

She was beginning to catch on. "You mean to infect the blood supply?"

"Or our own," Fox shrugged. "Even on good days you can't be sure you'll get a kill-to-death ratio of one-to-one. If we could inject ourselves with the virus, at the very least we'd be sure any one of us that was bitten would do some serious damage to the biter."

"Wouldn't that prevent it from spreading to another vampire?" High school biology class was so far behind her, and she'd never been a very good student. Still, wasn't there some kind of biological stuff that would keep a blood-borne virus from spreading through the air?

"True, depending on the stability of the virus. However, I doubt we'd have to worry about it. If Daystar is already transmittable by air, it's stable enough to transition between methods of infection." Fox waved off a question rising in her throat. "Don't ask me any more questions. I'm not a virologist. I'm not even a real doctor."

"Closest thing we got." That was the problem, really. Recruits were survivors, and survivors tended to be nobodies normal people wouldn't miss. A shut-in nerd like Hedges, a personal trainer from a bad neighborhood like Dex, a drunken, libidinous frat kid like King, a bastard child from a dead home like her. Sommer, Caulder, Fox, they were people with well-funded educations and were in too short a supply.

"Hnn," Fox drummed her fingers on the counter top, shaking Abby's reverie. "That's funny coming from you."

"What do you mean?"

"I was under the impression," Fox began and then stopped. If she'd started out being coy, she rapidly abandoned it and went for the direct approach. "You don't like me, do you?"

"I don't know you," Abby held up her hands, "but no, not very much." Honest to a fault, her mother always said. Some people thought it was rude. Not Fox, apparently. The other woman nodded, not offended by this. She still felt obligated to mitigate the harshness of her words. "I don't get you a lot of the time, Fox."

"It would be easier if you hated me, wouldn't it?"

"Not really." Hating her might make it worse. She only half-trusted Fox to be rational and sane as was. Hating her for whatever personality or psychological flaws she had would ruin any sense of unity in their common purpose.

"It would be easier, trust me," Fox sighed, pushing away from the counter, her back cracking as she stretched her arms up over her head. "It's always easier to hate people than to understand them."

Proclamation delivered, Fox hopped off her stool and walked around the island past Abby without further comment. Her door clicked open and shut a moment later, and only then did Abby let out a slow, calming breath.

This turned into a hiccup of alarm when Stone tapped her on the shoulder. She hadn't heard him approach.

"_Fuck_," she gasped, "don't _do_ that."

"Sorry," he winked cheekily at her. "I'm headed out to the Bay." His dive gear was slung over his shoulder in a dark blue polyester duffel bag. "Got an e-mail from Gidge. He matched one of my boats to a name off of one of the IDs Fox pinched."

This was promising. "What are you going to do?"

Stone frowned, rubbing his chin uncertainly. "Not sure. Follow him back to his hole, drop in some RAID."

"Maybe he can lead us to the farm."

"Ah," Stone tapped the side of his nose. " 'S what I'm thinking. Ciao." He passed her, waving.

"Stay in touch," she called after him, chewing on the mouth of her water bottle, debating what to do. It was five-thirty, plenty of time to either get more sleep or put in a little extra practice.

Less than ninety-six hours to get ready for the conference. That decided for her. She pulled her hair back with the tie around her wrist, padding off to her bedroom for her workout gear.


	16. Touchy, touchy

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1_Author's Note: Apologies to Ryan Reynolds and David Goyer for stealing one of their unused jokes and reproducing it here. Then again, this is fanfiction, so it's almost all stolen anyway, isn't it?_

"Yes, everything's ready for your arrival." A delicate pause, then, "I'd prefer not to say. I have a guest. It's not for his ears, even if he is asleep. I will contact you later." The next period of silence on her end was less friendly and conciliatory. "I will contact you _later_. You may call here Wednesday. Speak only to me. Goodbye."

King kept his body loose, something that was not easy to do when he wasn't actually asleep. His soul was one born to move, to make itself known, not to fade. If not for the Nightstalkers and the copious amounts of training they'd put him through, he'd have burnt himself out from living fast, shooting off at the mouth - well, okay, he still did that, but not so's it had gotten him in trouble…too much.

"Wake up, lover," a silken voice purred in his ear. He pretended not to hear, rolling naturally away from the breath on his face. One thing about vampires he had never liked - one of _many_ things - was the permanent halitosis. Something to do with being a living corpse, he guessed. Like they'd never heard of Listerine?

A thin slice of pain danced along his temple. Startled, he jerked awake and upright. Feliar smiled next to him, laying her head on the pillow he vacated and licking the tip of a fingernail; the white of her French manicure was tinted crimson. His hand wandered to the side of his face and his fingertips came away bloody. The raw skin burned under his touch. That was going to leave a mark

"Aww," Feliar fussed, scratching his head as he lay back down next to her. "Did I hurt you, my not-so-little one?"

King swallowed, shaking his head and passing off rage as nerves. He _hated_ the nicknames. The scratches, the scars, even the _fucking bites_, he could handle; hearing baby talk twenty-four seven was another story. Hell, even _Zoe_ didn't have to put up with that.

"It's time to get up. Time to go out."

"Why?" His shaky grin approximated hopefulness and fear. "Nothing we can't get here." He ran his fingers down from her throat, stopping suggestively at the point of the V made by the fold of her dangerously unprofessional low-necked blouse.

"Mm, perhaps later," Feliar laughed, breathily. "I want you to meet someone."

"Is it Celine Dion? She's a Canadian treasure, you know."

"I hated that song," she sneered, but her lips were too curved for malice.

"I still cry every time."

"Are you finished?" She sighed, flicking his lip with her index finger. He took this as his cue to stay quiet. "You've missed all the excitement because you've been sleeping, silly." She pouted, an incongruous expression to pair with the suspicion burning in her eyes. "You were sleeping this whole time. It's _late_." He checked the clock. Two in the afternoon. That _was_ late.

Truthfully, he had only been asleep a few hours, snatched between Feliar's attentions and her exits. Abby teased him about sleeping so deeply the undead couldn't wake him - or she had until the business with Drake and then wisely dropped it. He could keep himself in shallow sleep, as he did when Feliar was with him, and take advantage of her frequent outings to go deeper, catch maybe forty minutes to an hour of full sleep to take the edge off.

"I was conserving my energy," he smiled for her, thinking of Abby. Teasing was really her turn-on. Vamps dug pain - boy, did they ever - more than acerbic wit and devilish charisma.

"Mm," Feliar hummed, her irritation vanishing for an instant as she ran a scaly, cold hand down his chest, stroking his stomach with the very tips of her nails. It sated her impulse to go farther, and her businesslike demeanor reasserted itself. "But not any more," she pushed herself up and onto her elbow. "You're going to get up so you can meet our guest when she arrives."

She? He didn't like the sound of that, but as her tone left no room for disagreement he nodded. "But why?"

"Because I said so, your highness." And she was off the bed, moving around the suite to the kitchen where, he knew, she would have blood stored and waiting. Despite being well within her rights - as far as such things existed between vampires and victims - she hadn't bitten him. Not that he wasn't grateful for it, but it set off his trusty internal alarms - the ones that always sang out when something devious and female was around.

_Your highness_. That one was the worst. Naked, he walked to the bathroom. After their first night, she had told him that, while he was in her suites, if she saw a single piece of clothing on him, she would 'do something unpleasant.' Her company was unpleasant enough as was, so he didn't contest her rules.

The bathroom was a palatial thing, ivory marble tile with tasteful splashes of tan and black. No visible theme, no tacky animal print. The separate shower was entirely made of crystal, not glass - he'd read the brochure about thirty times in the past thirty-six hours out of sheer boredom - also indicative of the client the hotel expected to occupy its most expensive room; no one shy about showing off would rent out the penthouse suite. One too many sessions in the Jacuzzi later, and King made for the shower like his life depended on it.

Being locked up in a woman's pleasure palace sounded about as onerous and awful as being able to subsist on sunbathing and chocolate ice cream. None of his college friends would ever have listened to his complaints seriously, even minus the whole vampirism thing, if King'd ever been able to tell them about Danica. And somehow he got the feeling neither Stone nor Caulder were going to feel especially sorry for him this time either. God forbid the big man find out; he'd never live it down.

It didn't really matter what they thought. None of them had been at Danica's, and none of them were in Feliar's penthouse now. Just him and the vampire. He certainly didn't expect sympathy from _her_.

Feliar had made it very clear where the boundaries were. His were the confines of her suite, hers nonexistent. Goons were outside the doors, and he trusted the apartment was wired without really investigating it - Feliar had had considerable time to set herself up here, she could have bugged it worse than eight-year-old with lice. He'd been able to sneak a call to Abby out the window, but hadn't risked any since. Claustrophobia was starting set in with a vengeance, not helped by being penned in - _again_ - with a vampire.

In the mirror-polished stainless steel of the showerhead's base, he could see Feliar walk past the door and rifle through his things, or what was left of them. On their first night, she'd connected all the holes in his jeans by ripping through them with her nails. She collected the pile of rags and disappeared.

Door hinges sang out and set the small hairs on the back of his neck to perpendiculars. Wrapping a downy fresh towel around his waist, he walked out of the bathroom to find a strange, Slavic-looking man standing in the foyer. This one, like the others he'd seen in the two days since his arrival, had definitely been eating his Wheaties.

"You are not Filia," the tall, thick-necked man said, his English grammar-perfect and accent-ruined.

"Thanks for letting me know," King shot back, gripping his towel tighter around his waist. This dude reminded him uncomfortably of Jarko Grimwood, though, if such a thing were possible, he looked stupider.

"Where is she?"

"I'm sorry, Boris, she's indisposed at the moment." He mouthed, "That time of the month."

"My name is not Boris."

"I wouldn't have pegged you for Natasha. I'd have to see you in a mink stole and heels to know, I guess."

"His name is Mischa," Feliar's voice came from nowhere. King looked up and down at the newly crowned Mischa.

"Mischa, you've grown an extra pair of legs." He stared directly into the other man's eyes. "Don't take this the wrong way, but they're pretty hot."

"_Thank you_, King, that is enough." Feliar stepped around Mischa, who appeared relieved to have her in his sight rather than at his back. She came to him, leaning her head into the crook of his shoulder, licking her lips as she nuzzled his neck; he imagined her forgetting herself and going for what she so obviously wanted there. Instead, she turned to Mischa, placing a hand in the small of his back at the same time, propelling him forward.

"Say hello to Mischa, King."

" 'lo," he said, sullenly as Mischa hesitantly extended one meaty palm in his direction. A black vampire glyph was tattooed on the inside of his wrist. He purposefully fisted his hands at his sides. "Sorry, I don't shake ever since I learned guys jerk off once about every ten minutes. I don't know where you've been."

"Is that so?" Feliar's lips curved into her best seductive smile.

"As far as I know from personal experience."

"Indeed. Now, be quiet."

"Right."

Feliar glared at third person in the room. "Now, then, Mischa, what are you doing here?"

"Taking him by violence is not-" Mischa blurted out the words before cutting himself off when Feliar made a chopping, downward motion with her hand. Very well trained, this familiar. King noted his accent and his glyph; he was not one of the local boys, nor did he belong to Feliar.

"I thought you were told to mind your business, Mischa."

"My..." Mischa started, then glanced at King and said something else. "I've been asked to make sure all goes well."

"Oh, of course," Feliar eased her way to him, patting Mischa's football-thick bicep. A foot above her head, sweat broke out on Mischa's brow. "I suppose," Feliar walked two fingers up his arm, "I suppose I don't have to remind you that you aren't allowed to interfere with the way I run things, hmm?"

"My mas..." Mischa stopped again.

"Yes?" Feliar coached him. King caught madness in her eyes and took an exaggerated step backwards, which did not reassure poor Mischa. "Tell me, Mischa, tell me what your _master_ told you." She flashed King a predatory wink. He backed up another step.

"My master said seizing the...the...he says it is not a good idea. It will attract attention."

"Oh, so _clever,_ your master. So _aware_ of propriety, he is, hiding in his mountains." Whirling around, she stalked, stiff limbed, to King and began circling him. Suddenly, he was in Mischa's position, acutely aware of a very dangerous creature at his back. "King," she cooed in his ear. "Do you know who his master is?"

"No," he said, at once. If this were a test, he'd still pass. He didn't recognize the glyph - no one bearing it had ever come through Danica's apartments that he had seen. And if she believed his story, she wouldn't expect him to have spent a great deal of time memorizing tattoos. He didn't know the guy from Adam. That was his story, and he was sticking to it.

"His _master_," Feliar's breath whistled through her teeth, "was my sire."

"Small world."

"Not so, King," she slunk away from him and towards Mischa again. "My sire has never quite let me run free. Isn't that so, Mischa?"

"This is _his_ project," Mischa offered in his own defense.

"Yes, but he trusted _me_ to run it, did he not? Could not be _bothered_ to leave the Great Tits out east and come." _Great Tits_, King processed. _The Grand Tetons._ He filed that one away in his mental 'in' box.

"I am supposed to make sure he survives until the conference."

Feliar's expression soured and froze some hundred degrees cooler than it had been already at this declaration. Whatever fine line Mischa had been walking, he'd just toed over it. _Make sure he survives until the conference_. He? Leung? Questions. He wasn't good with questions. He mostly just hurt people.

Feliar's response was icy. "He'll be just fine."

"He's supposed to-to present," Mischa continued, sounding more confident. God alone knew why. King was considering exit strategies and Mischa was missing the sulfur from a volatile fuse directly under his nose.

"And be on display," Feliar nodded, "I know. Don't worry. He will put on _such_ a performance." She patted Mischa's cheek. "Don't worry, sweetheart."

It was the 'sweetheart' that finally sent his nerves subsonic. Almost as one, King vaulted over the couch in the main room and Feliar leapt one foot vertically upwards to sink her fangs into Mischa's throat. Mischa's unfortunately chosen white shirt bloomed scarlet as his meaty arms tore at the woman fastened to his neck by her teeth. It was a kind of funny, seeing a man large enough to tackle the entire AFC East go down under a woman who weighed no more than 130 pounds altogether.

Feliar stood after a minute, her clothes miraculously unbloodied while her face was a smudged crimson mess. Flush from feeding, she rounded on him, smacking her lips and letting out a satisfied, "Ahhh!" Like a soda commercial.

"You missed a spot," King motioned with his thumb at the corner of his mouth. Feliar licked at her mouth in the mirror image of where he pointed. "Good, good, now, you've got a little bit right here," he waved his hand all over his face.

"Oh," Feliar giggled, licking her hands then wiping at her face. She looked at the mirror on a nearby wall, licking up every last drop. _Vampires_, King cringed internally, desperate to forget that, once upon a time, he, too, had found human blood to be like Maxwell House: _good to the last drop_. Feliar straightened her hair, frowning at an invisible spot of blood she seemed to have missed, then dismissing it.

"Such a bother. First her, now this."

'Her' hit a few buzzers. He needed to get on the wire to the others. There was only one 'her' he could put any faith in Feliar finding as much a nuisance as a dead body in her suite. He faked indifference and smiled for the vampire, who was biting her lower lip and looking him up and down like so much meat. When he'd gone over the couch, he'd lost his towel.

"Is that what happens to me if we break up?"

"Ki-i-ing," Feliar laughed, actually breathless. "I would _never_, you know that. Now, _up_." She yanked hard on his bad shoulder. Brushing him off and resettling the crisp pleats in her outfit at the same time, she led him behind her, slapping away his hand when he tried to retrieve his towel.

"What did I say?"

"Sorry," he mumbled, "You know me. I'm shy. I've got issues. Loads of them."

"Mmm," Feliar rumbled, "thankfully, not such as affect your performance. She reached up on tiptoe to lick his upper lip and over his nose, sighing as she pulled away. "Get dressed."

"In what?"

"I want you in this," Feliar said from his elbow, guiding him towards a splay of surprisingly conservative wear, newly laid out on the rumpled king-sized bed. It was a suit, a dark gray one, with a slate blue shit and complementing cornflower silk tie. "I want you in this," she hummed in his ear while grabbing his stomach, digging her nails in and squeezing once before reaching down to grab his dick. "I want you anyway, but for now, in this."

And then she was gone, heels clacking on the tile by the front door as she slipped outside without another word. Hot and cold, that was how she ran. If not for the infinite amount of practice he had with that kind of woman, it might have been disconcerting. Danica could have crazied circles around her.

The things he did for revenge. He lifted the outfit by the heavy rosewood hangar, rifling through the layers to find she hadn't gotten him any boxers. That, he could only assume, was on purpose. If she came to him later, she wouldn't want them in the way. He concentrated on the promise of a shower and the urgency of the next call he would have to make.

Hopefully, Gidge was still awake.


	17. Reach Out and Touch Someone

"Thanks, Skeet." Gidge scanned the C.V. on his screen. Dr. Herbert Fowler, neurosurgeon, was a triple-threat Harvard graduate, winner of several local and statewide awards, and one missing brain doctor.

Skeet waved him off, sipping his Mountain Dew with a relish. "No problem, Gidge, hope this helps."

Skeet's team in Sacramento had done their homework. He returned to Dr. Fowler's C.V. and an article detailing the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. The police investigation was still open. Fowler's car had been discovered between two exits on Rte. 80. There was no blood in, on, or around his car, and no tracks to be found on the asphalt shoulder. Fowler's work mobile was attached to the dash in a professional set up, head set and all, so that he could take work-related emergency calls, of which he probably had his fair share; he did emergency trauma work as much as scheduled surgery. His personal cell phone was found on the passenger's seat.

Gidge looked at the other two missing persons reports for the Sacramento area: Dr. Marie Autile, MD and PhD and Jennifer Samuels, RN. Autile's clinical research was an ongoing study of patients in persistent vegetative comas, so it was pretty obvious why the vamps had snatched her, as her expertise would be invaluable to the setup and maintenance of the blood farms.

Samuels was a bit more puzzling. Compared to the fifty-something Autile, and the mature forty-ish Fowler, Samuels was a kid. Graduating one year ago without honors from the University of Virginia School of Nursing, and accepting an offer for a post at the Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, Samuels was hardly a blood and guts expert, though she might provide some insight on patient care. Maybe they wanted someone freshly educated to shore up the dated training of the other doctors.

Maybe, and maybe Gidge would take up jogging outside in the park. Fowler didn't make a whole lot of sense; he was a surgeon, highly overqualified as a technician and underqualified in terms of patient care to monitor a blood bank. Possibly, he covered emergencies, Autile had the long-run stats, and Samuels had the bedside manner to fill in. But something was nagging him, picking at the inconsistency. Something Stone had said about women. Two out of three of the missing medical types were women. Coincidence?

It was possible they were just anomalies, like a handful of other local disappearances that the Sacramento crowd ruled out as potentially vampire-related. Except that all three had vanished without a trace of violence, without saying goodbye to relatives or having a single enemy in the world. Indeed, Sacramento thought the world of Dr. Fowler, and the world thought the world about Dr. Autile. Nurse Samuels had a fiancé who'd reported her missing in the first place.

These three he categorized in the less than fair but still accurate column of 'people who will be missed.' As a rule vampires avoided having too many of their victims fall under that designation. They had to have a _very_ good reason for abducting people with such high profiles, and Gidge was more than a little afraid to know what it might be; if it was something worse than the blood farm the others talked about, he didn't want to find out.

The secure line flashed a half-second before it rang. He flipped it on.

"Yo."

"Gidge, call the crew." It was King, talking in a low monotone with only urgency for inflection. "Feliar knows Fox is here."

"Why don't you call them?"

"I don't have time, and I leave terrible messages, all right? So just do it."

And the man was gone again. He'd never get used to the new guys and their impatience. Caulder was a scientist, Alyssa a den mother, and whatever Joneses Stone and Fox had in their blood, they never took it out on him. Whereas Whistler and King took life at a run and expected everyone else to keep up. He, for one, was fucking exhausted by it.

He was also a little off his game today. In addition to working on no sleep and a shitload of caffeine, he'd caught a breaking news bulletin at noon which informed him that Tony Baker, the nobody familiar he'd tapped, was a corpse. Guilt chewed on his conscience for this even as he (mostly) absolved himself of responsibility. Still, he should have been more careful.

Maybe King had ratted the guy out to buy him an 'in' with the vampire. The casual cruelty of this notion unnerved him. It was a cavalier attitude towards life that he normally associated with the vampires. Then again, why should it surprise him if King was that chill? The guy had been a bloodsucker for long enough that neither he nor his partner would volunteer the details.

Or maybe Gidge was just a fucking idiot and shouldn't care that a familiar was dead. He half-expected that, if the vampires were gone, all the familiars would be disappointed but would ultimately just go back to their normal lives. But that was still a long way off. For now, the old rules still applied: familiars were bastards who sold out people to the vampires, and one living familiar was one too many.

He felt better upon reaching this resolution, and dialed San Francisco. There was no answer upstairs, so he pinged Caulder's computer and rousted the distracted biochemist.

"What's up, doc?"

"Gidge, is this important? I'm working."

"King called me to say Fox's made."

Caulder sighed, shrugging. "Whistler mentioned as much to me this morning. I gather she talked to him last night some time."

That his news was already expected rankled some, but Gidge pressed on.

"He said it was for sure. You might want to bench her until Thursday."

"She was helping me with Daystar and went to take a nap. I'll tell her to stay indoors when she gets up."

"You sure?" Gidge's gut rumbled. It was probably a protest of his steady diet of No Doze and Doritos, but he trusted that it meant more. He reached without looking for the tracker program and keyed in the code for Fox's biometric tracking device.

"Caulder, I hate to break this to you," he read off the coordinates of Fox's tracker and compared them to Caulder's. "But she's not at home."

Caulder frowned, still not resigned to worry. "She might have gone with Whistler and Alyssa."

"Where are they?"

Caulder's perturbation cut deep worry lines on his forehead. "Alyssa thought they should go talk to Leung and his wife."

Gidge goggled at the screen. "And you _let_ her?" He could imagine that argument, sure, but no way could he have pictured Caulder _losing_ it. "Alyssa's pregnant, Caulder, and you send her out to the guy whose boss eats babies for breakfast?"

"It was not my idea," Caulder grumbled, pinching his eyebrow and pulling out a few hairs. It was the oddest nervous tick, but Caulder did it whenever he was sufficiently agitated. "She seemed to think they'd be safe. The convention is a public affair, he's the agent on record who's in charge, and they have plenty of daylight left to work in. Whistler went with her as a precaution."

Caulder's rationalization convinced neither of them, but Gidge let it slide. He could beat Caulder over the head and give Alyssa a thousand noogies _later_. He popped in Alyssa's tracking code and aligned it with Fox's.

"I got more bad news for you then."

"What?" Now that the subject of his pregnant wife had popped up, Caulder was paying him a lot more attention.

"Fox is nowhere _near_ them, Whistler or 'Lyssa."

"That is bad news," Caulder tapped a pen against his desk, frowning. "Give Alyssa and Whistler a call. Try Eli, too. Someone should go pick her up before the vampires do."

"What is she doing downtown?"

"No idea," Caulder shook his head. "She said nothing to me this morning. Just helped me with Daystar and went for a nap."

"Right, _nap_," Gidge rolled his eyes. Only someone as fundamentally trustworthy as Caulder could be that trusting. "Look, I'm gonna pull the data from the computers upstairs, see if I can't cross-reference anything new she's got with what I have on her familiars."

"The ones from Saturday?" Caulder thought about this. "You think she's going after them?"

"I can't think of what else she'd be doing. Feliar's all the way across the city with King at the Ritz, so she's not after her unless she's got some sort of surface missiles."

"With Fox, you never know."

"Don't say that, _please_?" Gidge signed off the video conferencing and connected to the laptop in the kitchen. Fox had nothing new on the familiars other than what he'd sent to her and Eli, and he almost disconnected when a keystroke log on his right-most monitor began to report typing. If the little kid was playing with his hardware, he'd get Caulder to spank her while he watched.

He re-opened the conferencing software.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing, missy?"

But it wasn't the girl. A dark shape reached across the camera's range, and Gidge recognized it as an arm. The view swiveled as the arm's owner turned the laptop to face him. Gidge stared at someone he'd never seen before in his life. It was _definitely_ not the kid.

"Missy?" The man's voice rumbled on the lowest register, bordering on a growl that didn't sound remotely happy.

Gidge nearly cut the connection when he saw the guy's teeth. _Definitely _not human. _Shit_. He had to warn Caulder!

"Who are you?" the figure commanded.

Gidge swallowed, gagging, fingers flying as he tried to fire off a silent alarm to Caulder.

"Who am _I?_ Who the _fuck_ are _you_?"

"The boogeyman. Where's Whistler?"

"Where's Caulder?" Caulder wasn't answering his frantic red alerts. Not good.

"Busy." _Not 'dead,'_ Gidge thanked God. He'd said he was 'busy,' not dead.

"Where's the kid?"

The man on the other end grinned, held a finger to his lips. "Shh. She's sleeping." The man didn't seem to intend the kid any harm despite his humorlessness. "Whistler?" He repeated.

"She's out."

The other man nodded, approving this answer. Fresh intimidation flushed through his body. This guy knew Whistler. Knew Whistler was a _she_, as opposed to the legendary Whistler Sr. who worked with…_Oh Jesus!_

He could feel his jaw drop and his eyes go wide.

"You-You're Blade, aren't you?"

The man on the other end grinned.


	18. A House is not a Home

412 Ocean Avenue was a squat, cookie-cutter house, complete with stucco and vinyl siding, that wouldn't have looked out of place in any suburb. Alyssa killed the engine of their jeep, sighing contentedly as she looked the place over.

"I'd kill for a house like that."

"Wait three days, you might not have to."

"Hmmm," Alyssa grinned, tapping her fingers against her flat abdomen. "We might take you up on that."

Abby regarded her a long moment, and said, lowly, "You're quitting when you have the baby, right?"

Alyssa didn't answer, but she didn't have to. Alyssa was ten years older than her, Caulder older still, and they were going to be parents shortly. Their work wasn't compatible with that lifestyle, Sommer and Zoe notwithstanding. They deserved a chance at normality.

"Let's go," Alyssa said, resolutely opening and slamming her door. Abby chucked the strap of the black camera bag around her shoulders and followed. The camera weighed next to nothing compared to the .357 magnums she'd stuck in beside it. It didn't ameliorate her nagging sense of impropriety about going in so lightly armed, even if she wasn't expecting a fight. This work was all about anticipating and being prepared for trouble regardless of circumstance.

Alyssa swept her hair back over one shoulder, tossing her head with a wave to settle her sun-kissed, marigold locks. Abby hadn't seen her so composed in any of the weeks past since they'd begun working together, and professional envy preyed upon this admiration. Investigatory methods that employed killing with kindness, role-playing, and improvisation were as foreign to her as the sunny avenues and suburbs they traversed now.

Slate steps cut a path across emerald blades of grass, a distance of about twenty feet between the front door and the curb. She counted off their paces as they approached, fifteen for her, twenty-three Alyssa in her pumps. If they were attacked, Alyssa would regret that sacrifice of function for fashion. She had to admit that the other woman dressed the part of reporter pretty well, wardrobe deficiencies aside.

Ditzy, sleazy smile firmly in place, back straight to push out her breasts farther than the Wonderbra alone could manage, Alyssa pressed an immaculately manicured fingernail to the buzzer. "Ode to Joy" chimed through the space on the opposite side of the door.

"Lovely," Alyssa muttered without losing her grin, primping her hair needlessly. The effect was astonishing; the more Alyssa wanted to appear a bimbo, the more it was all Abby could see.

"You do this a lot?"

Alyssa arched a thin eyebrow. "I used to work in a salon. You get all types, but the repeats tend to be," she hesitated, tapping a fingernail to her lips, selecting for a more democratic word. That was more like the woman Abby knew. "Let's just say the clientele don't always challenge your brain so much as your patience."

Alyssa rung again and started to hum along to the doorbell chimes, continuing the hymn when the novelty buzzer faded away. She waited out two minutes, precisely by Abby's count, and rang once more to the same effect. No answer.

Automatically, Abby clicked into combat mode, spine stiffening. She catalogued the yard in front of them at a glance: cars, two of them in the driveway; a basketball hoop above the garage door; a bike left by the bushes on its side; a swing hanging from a tree. No signs of violence, only of interruption, of family life on pause. They'd chosen this time expecting to catch only Leung's wife and children at home. The house appeared to still be waiting for them, its toys expectant of the boys, the cars ready to take the family out again. But the Leungs should have been there by now.

Curtains in the bay window were drawn against the sunlight, and a shifting queasiness wormed through her soul. The weather was temperate and mild, the day gorgeous and airy, and 412 was the only house on the block with nary a window keen to enjoy nature's good mood.

"Stay here," Abby mumbled, edging closer to Alyssa. Nodding, Alyssa slipped her hand into the camera bag and removed a black canister of vampire mace - essence of garlic, EDTA, and silver nitrate, an especially nasty cocktail - and shoved it into her handbag.

"If someone answers, I'll stall till you get back."

"If it's not them, ask for the Smiths. They'll redirect you, and you leave."

Alyssa nodded, tossing her hair, unfazed. "I'll wait two blocks east and one south, by the gas mart we passed."

Abby closed her hand over the butt of one of the pistols as she vaulted over the railing lining the stairs leading up to the door. "Keep ringing the bell every two minutes so I know you're okay," she called over her shoulder.

Glancing up and down the street, Abby marked the potential witnesses. Five houses down, on the next block, a man in a suit picked up a child who'd come flying out the door to greet him. In the other direction, a car honked at a mother helping her daughter navigate their way to the park on a tricycle. All around her were people living ordinary lives. Behind her was a house possibly hiding an extraordinary and most likely gruesome secret.

As nonchalantly as she could, Abby sidled along the front, casually peering at the curtains to no effect; the opaque material denied any view of the interior. She reached the edge of the house and rounded the corner, pulling the magnum's handle out one side of the camera bag. Keeping one eye on the kitchen window of the neighbor's house - which, this being a suburb of San Francisco, was too close to Leung's house for Abby's liking - she ducked between the buildings for the back door.

A paved space, suitable for a grill party and not much else, predominated the small backyard. Flush with the back wall, she peered up at the window overlooking the yard, leaning far enough out to check for anyone standing just inside. Seeing no one, she extracted her magnum fully, cautiously covering it from prying eyes by tucking it between her and the bag, and crept up the stairs to the backdoor.

The screen opened with a shuddering, metallic yawn from the rusty hinge, and Abby paused, sandwiched between it and the wooden door, magnum in her left hand. She moved to put an ear to the door when it fell inwards with the gentlest push of her fingertips.

Not good. The silence reassured her, as did the strains of "Ode to Joy" coming from across the house: no one had heard her at the door and Alyssa was safe. It was time to proceed. She eased herself inside sideways, bringing up her sidearm with both hands to steady it.

The kitchen displayed the same average style as the house itself, nothing too flashy or posh but nothing gaudy or mismatched either. An ovular chestnut breakfast table in one corner had chairs pulled out at random. Remnants of an after-school snack of fruit roll-ups and soda were haphazardly strewn on and around the table in a manner indicative of forgetful children in a hurry to be somewhere else.

And a middle-aged woman lay crumpled atop the form of a small child in the middle of the country-blue, flower-tiled floor. Abby lowered her weapon, dropping to a crouch as she drew nearer to them. She smelled blood; the bodies were still. She pressed two fingers to the woman's wrist. No pulse, though the corpse was considerably warmer than the air around her - she hadn't been dead too long.

In midst of death, "Ode to Joy" cheerily played.

Abby backed away from the bodies, rage balling up in her throat. She performed a perfunctory sweep of the first floor - unoccupied save for the deceased - and went to the front door to let Alyssa in.

"Hi! I'm-" She stopped when she saw Abby and wordlessly stepped into the front hall, closing the door behind her. "Nobody home?"

"Nobody breathing."

Alyssa brushed by her, headed for the bodies as if by instinct before Abby could warn her. To her credit, the other woman made no sound when she discovered what the vampires had left behind. Abby walked back to the kitchen to find her seated next to their heads, brushing a bit of hair out of the woman's face.

"This is his wife. I recognize her from the pictures Fox had." The hair that she moved aside revealed a ragged bite mark over the carotids on her neck. The skin was sallow and gray, no blood left to pool under the skin and form a bruise after death.

"I figured as much."

"And her son," Alyssa covered her mouth with her hand. The floozy reporter act had evaporated. She reached for the boy, but Abby brought her up short with a hissed command.

"Don't. Don't move them. This could be a setup." Or if not, they could easily blunder into one. No one yet knew there was anything amiss at the Leung household, but they would eventually. Any alterations they made to the crime scene might point the finger at them for the murders.

"He's only a _boy_," Alyssa hiccupped, angrily swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. A testament to her skill and savvy, her makeup remained immaculate.

"This is the younger boy?" Abby prompted her, keeping her focused.

"Yes. Matthew." Alyssa blinked up at her. "What about the other boy?"

"I'll check upstairs. Stay here." As an afterthought, she tossed Alyssa the other gun and dropped the camera bag. Better to be unencumbered as she snooped around.

She moved through the house on tiptoe, tensing at every natural creak in the floorboards and scratch of tree branches on windowpanes. She didn't stop to investigate the first floor more thoroughly. It was sparsely furnished and impeccably neat; they had to make this quick, so anything not hiding in plain sight, she didn't stop for.

On the second floor, she scanned family photos, noting that there was only one in which three children were present, the most Leung had ever managed to keep alive at once. The master bedroom and its adjoining bath were spotless displays of deranged perfection, evidence of a person driven to occupy her body in order to quiet her mind.

Only the smaller bedrooms, one decorated in falling down Yu-Gi-Oh posters and the other with punk rock paraphernalia, looked lived in, the way boys' rooms often do. She flipped through the debris in the younger boy's room, swallowing against a sob upon seeing the abandoned and now ownerless toys. It reminded her uncomfortably of disposing of Hedges' collectibles at the Honeycomb.

The older boy's room yielded more interesting results. A CPU-less monitor lay end-up on the floor, shards from the screen littered around the unkempt desk. The accompanying components of the missing computer lay forgotten or thrown aside. Nothing for them to salvage here; whatever might have been on boy's computer was gone.

Paper crinkled beneath her foot as she backed out. She dropped her gaze to the floor and snatched at the thin band she had stepped on.

"Patrick Leung." There were numbers and letters in a jumble that Fox and Gidge might be able to decipher, but the Biomedica logo she recognized all on her own. A hospital bracelet bearing the boy's name and the corporate seal of the vampires was no coincidence. She pocketed it.

The rest of the second floor yielded nothing of interest save an empty docking station for a laptop in the den, and a folded ceiling ladder to the attic that she had no time to explore. The bracelet was enough.

Rejoining Alyssa in the kitchen, she found the other woman reading mail from a metal bin on the marble countertop.

"Bills, mostly," Alyssa said, absently, flicking through the pile with her fingernail. "Nothing from Biomedica."

"Not nothing."

Alyssa looked up. "You found something?"

She nodded. "You?"

"I guess the clean-up crew missed this one." Alyssa held up a flimsy piece of ripped paper; behind her, a thumbtack held down the rest of the note. She plucked it from Alyssa's fingers, exchanging the bracelet in return for Alyssa to examine. The note read: _Chris - Isaac will pick up the packages for Thursday, call him_. There was a number jotted beneath.

"Isaac?" Abby turned the note over. Nothing else was written on the other side. "Packages?"

"You got me." Alyssa shrugged, rubbing the bracelet between her fingers, her expression thoughtful. "This is the older boy. Patrick." She swallowed heavily once. "Did you find him, too?"

Abby shook her head. "No sign. But they took his computer and the laptop from the study upstairs."

"Then let's get out of here." Alyssa said, shortly, "Nothing much else to see." Her face was blank, her tone flat, and her posture slack with defeat. Despite her words, she remained rooted to the spot, staring mournfully at the bodies on the floor. "If only we'd gotten here sooner…"

"They'd probably still be dead."

"But _why_? Why do this? Why stop killing only to start again?"

"Maybe they thought we might abscond with their guest of honor." No, vampires weren't that altruistic. Leung had to have leverage or to have rendered a service they deemed irreplaceable for them to protect him.

"Maybe Leung graduated up and didn't want anything left of his old life." Alyssa's shrewd coldness surprised her; while not a comforting rationalization, it was probably true. Familiars weren't known for their attachment to family and friends or their compassion for the human race; they wouldn't try to become vampires if they liked people.

Neither had an answer that appealed, so they made their exit. Alyssa went out the front, her charming giggle and bubbly walk reasserting themselves as she thanked an empty house for its time. Abby joined her by the circuitous route around the back, relieved to catch the strains of a rowdy conversation of the neighbor's; they hadn't been spotted entering or leaving.

She reached the car to find Alyssa on the phone. Abby held her tongue while Alyssa listened then brought the phone away from her ear to bring her up to speed.

"Gidge called. He said something about Fox, but I couldn't make it out. He gets so incoherent when he's tired." She sighed and put the mobile back to her ear and listened again. "Jesus, he's left like five messages." Alyssa frowned mightily, trying to piece together the words. "Fox is out?"

"Shit," Abby pinched the bridge of her nose. She'd told her. She'd _told_ her to take it easy. When they left, Fox had been helping Caulder with Daystar. Why had she assumed Fox would listen to her and stay put?

"And," Alyssa continued, chewing her lip, "they know she's here?" Abby nodded, confirming this. "And…" Alyssa trailed off, hitting a button to skip to her next message. She nearly threw the phone away from her ear when it started; the voice on the other end was screaming so loud Abby could hear it. Alyssa lowered the volume and tried again. Abby held her breath and, after a beat, Alyssa did the same.

"What? What?" Alyssa's shell-shocked expression set her stomach to roiling. Too many doomsday scenarios flashed through her imagination: Fox discovered, the base compromised, King exposed, Zoe… "What?"

Alyssa's lower lip trembled as she turned her head to face Abby.

"You have a visitor."


	19. Another One Gone

Thanks his Coastie buddy, Stone had the mooring for a speedboat with the Hull Identification Number, or HIN, CF 1495 AB. California-registered boats were required to have them affixed in such a way as vandalism, alteration, or removal would be obvious. From the cards Fox picked off the familiars, Stone cross-referenced the speedboat with the registration RH 6889 FM to find the HIN attached to an Isaac Hobbes.

Hobbes – mid-thirties, prematurely graying and saggy about the midsection – had found himself a young woman with bobbed blonde hair. Using his binoculars, Stone had caught their whole encounter, from the wake of the speedboat knocking the girl off her kite board, to Hobbes giving her a ride in, to the girl climbing in the backseat of the black SUV with tinted windows. Following it had not been easy, and Stone had just about exhausted his options of curvy trails to cut across their path instead of directly following them when his cell phone rang.

"Stone."

"Jesus, man, you will not believe what I have for you."

"I'm a bit busy, Gidge."

"Where are you?"

"Over in Marin. Caught up with one of the Good Samaritans fishing boarders out of the Bay."

"Man, you don't know what you're _missing!_" Gidge squealed. It gave Stone pause. Gidge never got excited about _anything_ that didn't involve bytes, bits, pixels, or RAM.

"You want to share with me?" He looked ahead of him, added, "Gidge, I've got a plate for you that might help." He read it off the alphanumeric from the SUV ahead of him. "It's a corporate tag, too. This might be the break we're looking for."

"In a second, in a second," Gidge whined, and now Stone _knew_ something was seriously weird. Gidge never missed an opportunity to rape the DMV databases either. "You won't believe who's back at the base!"

"King?" He'd been out for nearly a couple of days now. While the cool chica he worked with didn't seem to sweat it, Stone didn't take it as a good sign.

"Nope."

"Santa Claus."

"Better."

"Jesus."

"_Better_!" Gidge hissed. "It's _him_, Stone!"

"Madre de Dios!" Stone shouted to himself, punching the ceiling of his jeep. That _was_ worth getting excited about. "You sure?"

"I _talked_ to him." Gidge _did_ sound like he'd met Jesus. "I don't want to say anything else over the phone." There followed a brief interval in which he could hear Gidge's fingers working their magic, plying information out of secure electronic holding pens and into Gidge's lap. "I got an address for that plate. You want it?"

"Yeah," he said, switching the phone to his left ear while he punched in the direction into his OnStar. He looked over the direct route the positioning system charted for him. That was deep into middle-of-nowhere territory. "Gidge, I've got good news."

"We could use some. Not that the big guy being around is bad news, but…" Gidge burbled happily.

"You sure this address is legit?"

"Duh-uh. That truck's listed as a corporate transport for Biomedica Industries."

"You're shitting me. They gave a real address to register their car?"

"Better than lying to the DMV. The government frowns on that sort of thing, you know. And they don't register to P.O. Boxes."

"But Uncle Sam ain't the one who's gonna come looking for vampires." Stone glanced away from the road. The SUV went straight through a light in front of him, and he flicked his blinker on, turning right to catch up with them via a shortcut. So far, it was heading in the right direction for the address Gidge gave him.

"I'm staying with this guy."

"If it goes to the plant, keep driving man. They know you guys are around, it's probably pretty heavily guarded."

"Wait a minute," Stone frowned. "They know we're here? Since when?"

"Sorry, forgot to mention that," Gidge said, apologetically, "They've made Fox."

"Damn," Stone ground his teeth. "Where is she?"

"She's not picking up. That's why I called you, actually, to see if you could call her in. I already tried Alyssa and Whistler, but they didn't answer either. Fox is out in the city, downtown."

"Damn her," Stone muttered. Fox would be after the familiars, attacking them when they were unawares. All it took was one of them to be forewarned and set her up. "I'm getting off the trail," he told Gidge, and, with some reluctance, used the OnStar to find the quickest way back to the Golden Gate and the city. It hurt to give up the pursuit, to put the life of that perky little number that Hobbes had picked up in jeopardy, but Fox was more important. He could only hope that when he got back to the plant - if that was where she was headed - there would be a way to save her.

Gidge didn't challenge this course of action. "What about the plant?"

"If it's going to be guarded, I'll need help. I don't want them following me, neither."

"You're going back for Fox?"

"She's my partner, Gidge. She can't fight worth shit, and she's exposed. There's no sense in letting her getting herself killed. We'll need her, and I owe her one anyway."

And he did. She had gotten him back into the business of making a difference through royally kicking ass, the very reason he'd enlisted in the SEAL program in the first place. He could not let her need for revenge on this Feliar person destroy her.

"I'll give you her location. What about, you know, _him_?"

"What about him?"

"Don't you want to meet him?"

"Already have, Gidge. He saved my life. But Fox has, too. I want to return the favor for her at least."

"I'll let Caulder and Alyssa know you've got her."

"You do that." As the whirlwind of new information settled in his brain, some firm logical bridges closed the gaps. "You know Whistler's behind this."

"Behind what?"

"Blade's being in town."

"So?"

"So why didn't she say anything to us?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, Stone, the new guys don't exactly play well with others. Maybe you've been in the water too long and missed it, but that's the impression I got."

"Whatever, I'll chew her out later. Give me Fox's location."

"She's over by SF State's main campus. Brotherhood Way."

"Wait a minute," Stone said, working it out. "That's awful close to the convention center."

"But it's across the city from the Ritz-Carlton where Feliar's staying."

"She's definitely there?" Stone was incredulous. Surely, the woman wouldn't be _that_ obvious. Not with the purebloods arriving in another day and the conference in three?

"King called this morning to say that's where he was. He was still there a little while ago when he rang back."

"You talked to him?"

"Yeah, 's how I know they found Fox. He got all snippy at me about making sure I got her off the street." Stone ignored this, focusing solely on the fact that King was alive. If he'd lasted three days and not wound up as food, he'd probably managed to fool the woman completely. Not bad.

"I'm going for Fox. We'll be back as soon as I'm sure we're not being followed." Stone hung up and punched the speed-dial for Fox's cell phone.

"Stone," she answered, coolly.

"Whatever you're doing, get the shit out of there. Buy a few cabs and meet me by Golden Gate Park."

"_Stone_," she groused, "I'm _shopping_."

"Well, your ass is grounded, as of right now."

"What do you mean?" She didn't sound convinced, but she dropped the overt hostility.

"Gidge says you've been spotted."

Fox didn't speak for long enough that he was sure she'd hung up. He checked his phone, but the call was still connected.

"Fox?"

"I see," she said without inflection.

"Fox, you need to drop what you're doing, _right now_."

"Abby told me as much this morning. But you can relax, Eli. They haven't made me for sure yet." Fox's breathy laughter made him shudder. "Well, at least none as have lived to tell about it. I'll go home after this last one, I swear."

"It'll be _your_ last if they're wise to you. You might already have a tail." Paranoia seized his gut, and he checked the rearview, tracking the trajectories of cars behind him long enough to rule out his possibly having his own shadow.

"He's been all over the convention center arena. I've seen him talking to some seriously foreign looking dudes. He might be _the_ contact for the vampires arriving tomorrow."

"_Forget it_," Stone urged. Was that light blue sedan making the same turn as him again? No, it wasn't, and he was still in the clear. He should never have followed the SUV trailing Hobbes' boat. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. "Fox, listen to me, this familiar…he could be setting you up."

"That's fine," she said, breezily. "If he takes me to her, I don't have to be even half alive to be able to kill her."

Her confidant, crazed words stunned him to silence for a long beat.

"Fox..."

"Listen to me, little brother," she soothed him, her tone venomous and coiled. "I'm not strong, I know. She'll kill me, and I know that, too. But I have the power of the dead on my side. And they do not forget, do not weaken."

"Fox, I know this spirit stuff is important to you--"

"_You know nothing of it!_" She hissed, panting into the phone. "You pretend it's _cute_. Like your Christian God is the be-all, end-all, and I'm wasting my time on the energies of my people, my _family_."

He listened to her breathe deeply, and when next she spoke, her reserve had returned.

"I may not be the most religious of the Hopi, Stone, but I had a duty to those girls. I didn't protect them in life as I should have. With their help, I can at least avenge their death's on that bitch's head."

He should have seen this coming. The ways of her people were such that, when a couple had a child, the father's family cared for and had specific obligations towards the mother and child.1 Fox had entered medical school to protect her nieces when their mother died shortly after giving birth. It was no accident that Fox studied medicine with the intent of being a pediatrician; her life would be devoted to the girls whose mother could not have been saved. Why was he surprised her dedication carried this far?

"You won't be able to avenge them if you're dead," he attempted, lamely, to reason with her.

"And I told you, they will be with me. There is nothing that can harm me. I have seen the _katsinam_," she whispered.

_Katsinam_2 were spirit messengers, usually ones bringing good tidings, which, back in New Mexico, would mean rain, successful crops, relief from suffering, and the like. For Fox, in secular San Francisco, it meant she would at last put to rest her duty. How the _hell_ could he argue that with her?

"Fox, _please_. Reconsider. The _katsinam_ might have been warning you." They did that, too, warned the Hopi people of the consequences of bad behavior. Like this, like running off to get killed and leaving business unresolved.

Fox hesitated, and he could picture the fire simmering down into a low smolder in her sharp, coal-black eyes. "Perhaps you are right."

_Thank you, Jesus, katsinam, whoever_. "It means we're close," he reassured her. "That it came to you means we're close, Fox."

"Yes, it does," she said, absently.

"Get out of the area. I'll pick you up on the north end of the park, Fulton and Fourteenth."

"Stone."

"Yes?"

"If you are wrong about this," she purred, her tone steely and sure. "If you have made me doubt what I've seen, and I miss this chance..."

"I know," he conceded. "Get to the park. Take your time." She hung up on him, and he relaxed into his seat after, without noticing, having sat up straighter since she started in on the whole _katsinam_ business.

If he were wrong, his hundred extra pounds on her would mean nothing; she would find a way to kill him. It wasn't personal, and it had happened before. Her fiancé, a close friend of her brother, had sworn to help her capture Feliar back in New Mexico. This man, this beloved, had held her up at a critical moment, and Feliar had slipped away; because of him, Fox was still waiting for her chance to kill the woman.

_"What happened to him?" he'd wanted to know._

_"I put foxglove in his coffee and left town."_

And that was that. He would have to start watching what he put in his mouth more carefully, if he turned out to be wrong.

The drive back into the city was short, the traffic light on the Marin-to-San Francisco side because of the hour; the rush was to get out of the city, not into it. Stone drove along Fulton past Fourteenth Street three times before Fox appeared, emerging from a cab two blocks away.

Cautiously, he turned around and doubled back down Fulton, driving eastward to the ocean, watching her from across the street. He'd gotten the timing of the lights down and found himself at a red right exactly on Fourteenth. Nonchalantly, he leaned his head against his fist, elbow on the open window frame, casually glancing around and trying to catch his partner's eye across the street while he waited for his green.

Fox stared past him, and, ever-so-indifferently, Stone followed her gaze. Two men walked in front of traffic, dodging around the cars turning at the light. Both were holding sidearms down and low. He sat up in his seat, switching his left foot to the break and tensing his right about the gas, ready for action. If he timed it right, he could pull a one-eighty as the opposing light turned yellow and grab Fox before the men reached her.

But it was Fox herself who stopped him. About to signal her, he froze. She held up her hands, elbows bent at ninety degrees and arms out from her sides as the men raised their weapons. She shook her head at him. _Don't risk it, _she was saying, just as one man put on a sprint and needlessly tackled her to the grass. Having given herself up, she fell, barely able to catch herself.

Blaring horns startled all the drivers of the cars at the front of queue who'd probably also been watching the takedown in the park. Stone had to force himself to drive off, one hand already punching in a speed-dial on his cell. It didn't matter who answered – Gidge, Alyssa, Caulder, the kid – he had to warn them. If Fox was exposed, they all might be.

Alyssa answered; he had dialed her cell. "Stone, Jesus, you won't believe..."

"Never mind!" He hollered, frantically dodging around traffic, making circles over circles, doubling back but always staying at least two blocks from the park. "They've got Fox!"

"Are you safe?"

Alyssa, he realized, was probably the best person he could have called. Her priorities were always in order. They'd lost Fox. Retrieving her came second to assuring his freedom and safety.

"Shit," Stone swore, checking his rearview mirrors. "They just grabbed her outside the park, guns and everything, the brazen little fuckers!"

"Eli, are _you_ safe?"

"I think so. I'm going to drive for a little while until I'm sure."

"Get out to the highway. Anyone following you on Route One, you'll be able to see."

This is was good advice, some part of his brain told him. Most of the rest of him still railed against his own stupidity. He should have picked her up earlier, should have warned her, if only Gidge had gotten through to her or Alyssa...

No. No time for that. Follow Alyssa's instructions, she could keep her head, and she was right. The good of the whole, that's what mattered. One man down they could survive, even if he didn't like it. Risking the rest for one was not an option. His training returned to him, and he calmed.

"I'm going to be a while. Fuck," he said for good measure. He had not even begun to get truly angry. This was still just shock and adrenaline. When he was safe, if he could be, _then_ he would be good and angry.

"I'll have Gidge following her tracker the whole time, okay?" Alyssa promised over the phone, his lifeline to sanity. "We'll know where they're taking her by the time you get back."

"She might be dead by then," Stone ground his teeth together. He owed her, and he had failed her. He might not believe in the cosmic forces she did, but he did believe in balance, in honor - no debt unpaid, that was how he lived.

"They won't kill her. Feliar wouldn't do that."

"Why not?" Fox scared the crap out him, scared the crap out of this Feliar so bad the woman, even as a vampire, had hidden herself from Fox for this long. If he were in the suck-bitch's place, he wouldn't hesitate to eliminate a threat like Fox.

"Because, Eli, they like to play," Alyssa spat out the words with disgust, her tone off and embittered. "You know how they operate. They like to gloat. Feliar will keep her alive long enough for us to get her back. You know she will and _we_ will."

"It's a stupid move for her to make."

"So was staying at the hotel. So was taking in King."

"Yeah," Stone blinked, and suddenly his mind was sharp, light and hopeful. "King. Get him on the line. Tell him Fox might be showing up. Tell him to get her out of there."

"That could blow his cover, Eli."

"If he lets her die, _I'll_ blow his goddamned head off!" He was pounding the wheel now. This was still only just anger building. When it exploded, someone or thing would die; he had to concentrate doubly hard on checking for tails so that the someone wouldn't be him.

"Get back here safe, Eli," Alyssa murmured. "We'll figure this out."

"Don't let her die," Stone growled. That was his _partner_, _damn it!_ And he could not let her die! For a crystalline instant, he touched the pure insanity Fox possessed, not caring what the cost so long as he got what he wanted. The realization sent him crashing, shaking with dispossessed rage. He couldn't go the way Fox had. It's why she was caught and he wasn't. Could. Not. Give. In. That's what they taught you as a SEAL: it wasn't that shit with the 'Army of One' and the fucking Rangers. It was the mission made the man; if the man fell out of the mission, the mission went on without him.

Alyssa was calling his name. "Eli?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Be safe. Get back here when you can. I promise, no one else is going to die."

Alyssa's melancholy unnerved him, competing with fury and shame for his attention and winning.

"What do you mean? Who else is dead?"

Flatly, Alyssa said, "We'll discuss it when you get back."

"Fine."

Agitated, furious, anxious, Stone dropped the phone instead of hanging up. It was one more distraction he couldn't afford. He prayed, whispering in his heart and then aloud: _be safe, get back, save Fox. Be safe. Get back. Save Fox._ If only his God could send a messenger the way Fox's did, to let him know whether his prayer would be answered.

1. This information about the Hopi people came courtesy of their very informative website, located at http/www.hopi.nsn.us/default.asp. The family of the mother is usually regarded as more closely related to the children of a marriage, as is common in many indigenous tribes of the Americas. However, the website made mention of this obligation to perform certain duties and extend particular care on the part of the father's family, which really fit in well with the back story I made for Fox.

2. Also, on the same website, the Hopi people describe their ritual _katsina_ dances, and the _katsinam_ in brief. I pray that they forgive me for doing such rudimentary investigation into their rich culture and heritage. I hereby state I mean absolutely no disrespect to them or any peoples with this story. For the sake of fanfiction, I have not felt obligated to delve too deeply into their culture or do as much research as I might, say, for a novel. However, that does not exempt me from my personal moral imperative not to misrepresent or assume things about the histories of others. If there is a problem with my representation, I am perfectly willing to do a rewrite, and interested/offended parties are within their rights to contact me (due to formating issues, I cannot post my e-mail in this story; please use the author information page to obtain it). 


	20. Boys Will Be Boys

Feliar had deposited him outside a conference room on the first floor of the Ritz. Contrary to the ultra liberal ethics of the majority of citizens, money greased wheels in San Francisco as much as it did anywhere else. Windows the entire length of the corridor were drawn, covered with curtains conspicuous only now that they weren't grandly pulled aside to offer an appealing vista of the streets outside.

The vampire disappeared with a single admonishment for him to stay where he was. It was an anteroom of sorts, furnished with a couple of posh benches and two doors on opposite ends. One led to the conference room, the other back out into the hall. He debated napping and discarded the notion. Calling the rest of the Nightstalkers struck him immediately as a bad idea; having him nearby, waiting on her, was just a way Feliar could keep a closer eye on him.

He settled on imagining vacations he and Abby would never take. Some time, some how, he had to get that girl on a nude beach. Something Euro-trashy, so he could properly enjoy the jealous looks of a thousand hairy continentals when she left with him. Maybe one of them would try to pick a fight and he could have the supreme pleasure of watching his naked partner kick ass; maybe she'd even punish him later for encouraging chauvinism. What I did on my summer vacation, King-style.

Lost in the sun and satisfaction, he barely caught a glimpse of the person who deposited a mopey kid decked out in don't-touch-me metal gear. Obeying the laws of relative strangers, the kid plopped down on the other plush, red velvet cushioned bench with only a cursory, default-polite nod.

"Hey." It was the unaffected indifference of a teenager, the kind that made him want to smack the kid and, retroactively, his own pubescent self; as his mother could attest, he'd been just a pissy once upon a time. It wasn't a greeting meant to encourage conversation, but he possessed a singular talent for fostering talk where none was merited or appreciated.

"So what did you do wrong?"

"Huh?" The boy didn't look up from where he picked at his chipped black nail polish.

"I got thrown out of the big kids' meeting for talking out of turn. What did you do?"

"Oh," the boy shrugged. "Nothing. I'm here for some tests."

"Tests?"

"Yeah," he muttered, now chewing on his thumbnail.

"Are you applying for a job?"

"_No_," the kid rolled his eyes; like any good teen, he thought he knew everything and the collected ignorance of the world was such a burden. King sympathized - it _was_ a burden, sometimes.

"I'm sick."

"I'm not loving the ripped Poison t-shirt either, pal, but I wouldn't go that far."

The boy snorted once, his sullen expression lifting and lightening his oppressive seriousness.

"Poison's ok. My dad gave me this."

"Who's your dad?"

"Christopher Leung."

"Don't know him," King lied easily; in his head, he did somersaults worthy of his partner's admiration. This was the older Leung boy - he hadn't caught the name from Abby - the one who was so sick all the time that the vamps had left him alone despite snacking on the rest of his siblings. Knowing this made all the difference in the world; suddenly, he could almost understand the kid's taste for black, his determination to be downbeat and cynical, and his masochistic love for bad eighties hair metal.

"I like Guns and Roses better. But Cannibal Corpse had some awesome shirts."

"Yeah," and the boy grinned again, less hesitantly this time. "They're really gross. My mom hates 'em. I never wear 'em around her. It's not like I listened to their music or anything."

"Before your time - sorry, what was your name?"

"Patrick."

"King."

"No shit?"

It was hard to impress a teenager - or fool one, for that matter. He sighed, beleaguered and put-upon, and confessed.

"It's Hannibal King, but I go by King."

"Hannibal?" The boy's thick brows pinched together, slanted down over his eyes suspiciously. "Like Anthony Hopkins and eating people and stuff?"

"Why do you think I go by King?"

"Sick."

Not entirely sure if this was condemnation or high praise, he pushed on.

"Where's your dad now?"

"Dunno. That psycho he works for 's like making sure I can take these tests or something. I dunno. We're staying overnight."

Patrick returned to examining his nails, grinding the grit out from one by worrying it with his teeth. Ripped black jeans, a black, faded-print shirt, silver and black leather cuffs, and scuffed Doc Martens - it could have been the younger, angrier, still-in-the-closet version of the guy he'd pretended to be when he picked up Feliar.

He caught Patrick trying to size him up and waited for the verdict.

"You, uh, work here or something?"

"As a matter of fact. I'm a liaison to your dad's boss." Horror flashed across the boy's face. "Relax. I don't like her much either. I won't tell if you don't." Relief replaced panic, and Patrick nodded; they had an understanding.

"You got some sorta weird fetish, too?"

"Well, I do like My Little Pony."

"Naw, naw," Patrick laughed, "like, man, have you seen what she does to her teeth? Friend of mine says capping like that costs."

"You have no idea."

He was beginning to like this kid. Not only was he not buying Feliar's public personality, he was savvy enough to notice the fangs. That was impressive; he hadn't noticed Danica's until they'd been half an inch deep in his throat. True, he'd been smashed enough to be seeing two of the diminutive, ball-sucking anal slut at the time, but still, mad props to the kid nonetheless.

"I got this friend who does stuff like that. I never saw a, like, business lady have that kind of thing. Or," the kid swallowed, uncertainly. King held his tongue while the kid rallied the courage to finish his thought. "I never saw a suit who pierced his ears."

"I was young and stupid once, too."

"Those are pretty cool. I'd get one like that," he pointed to King's left stud, an unostentatious gold ball he wore so as to throw the tasteful style of the blue stone in his right ear into sharper relief.

"Parents won't let you?"

"Nah. My mom'd let me do anything. I've gotten my tongue done twice, but it got infected both times when it started to heal over. Hurts like a bitch."

"My dad's a tattoo artist. He does piercings, too. I got to hear all kinds of good screams from the guys who went in drunk for Prince Alberts."

Patrick guffawed, wheezing and clutching his stomach as he rolled in his seat.

"Oh _man_, is that for real?"

"Who do think did my ears? And the life-size inking of Woody Allen's head over my left nipple?"

"Hah," Patrick sniffed, clearing his nose and wiping his eyes. "You're so full of it."

"I'm from Canada by way of Los Angeles. I'm entitled."

This sparked admiration and intrigue anew. "You're from L.A.?"

"I represent the interests of a few parties from that way, yeah."

"Must be cool."

"Super highways and snake handlers on every corner. I wake up crying every morning I'm not there."

"Fairy," Patrick sniggered, but they were clearly going to stay friends. He felt he could risk probing for more serious answers than those related to pop culture and self-mutilation.

"So, what're you in for?"

"I have anemia. They're supposed to be doing research to fix it or something."

"You don't look that skinny to me." It was an obvious mark, and the cynical teenager reared its head again as Patrick flicked a plaintive look at the ceiling, silently entreating Heaven's mercy.

"_Anemia_, dude. Anorexia is a chick thing."

"Hey, men are survivors, too, Pat."

"Rick."

"What?"

"Friends call me Rick. Pat's a girl's name."

"You don't have a problem with girls do you, Rick?" The question didn't need answering. Whether or not Rick felt one way or another about the female species, at fifteen, no man wanted to be considered effeminate. Not a few bullies had picked on him back in the day because of his earrings.

"Are you here for the conference?"

"That's me."

"What do you…do?"

He more or less assumed Feliar would have given him a nominal job title by now, as some of the other familiars who'd been in and out of her suite had acquired designations while prepping for Thursday. Evasion was the key here, leaving room for her to fill in the blanks later, but he had to give some answer.

What the hell? He went for the truth.

"I'm screwing your dad's boss."

Patrick snorted, coughing mightily and spitting out a fleck of torn-off fingernail he'd been shredding. He managed a snotty, "Ewww," and kept right on chuckling.

It was nice to have receptive audience again. Abby barely cracked a smile that wasn't dangerous, Zoe had grown up way too fast in the past few weeks, and he hadn't had much time to get to know the other crew before shacking up with the second soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Vampire King.

"And what is so funny?"

Patrick quit laughing in a hurry, cowed immediately by the entrance of his father and Feliar. King's smirk stayed firmly in place; he hoped she'd heard him.

"Patrick?" Leung peered over the vampire's shoulder at his son, nervous and twitchy. Feliar stepped aside so father could retrieve son, guiding him to one side so the two pairs could share a private moment. Arms folded behind her back, neither of the Leungs could see her extend one to reach for his ass.

"Playing nice?"

"You know it."

"Don't talk to the boy, King. You know why he's here."

Actually, he didn't, but he nodded while he tried to work it out. This was the sick kid, so why did the vampires want him? Leverage, probably. It always came back to leverage, or so Abby had told him. Vampires only bothered with humans because they were useful. That familiars were also walking, willing vampire espressos didn't hurt either.

King fought to keep his expression neutral as he watched Leung talking to Patrick. Leung was solicitous of his son, the latter having returned to being difficult and moody in a hurry. The kid might have been gratified to know his low opinion of his father wasn't wrong. With one pleading and cajoling and the other grunting and making noncommittal gestures, they seemed less like father and son than salesman and client. Which maybe made sense, as Leung senior was a pitchman for Biomedica. Patrick was the type to hate that phony pitch shit, too. They didn't even look related, much.

Feliar cleared her throat. In front of Patrick, she took pains to keep her mouth closed as much as possible. If it wouldn't mean a number of unpleasant things happening to him as a result, he might have told her Patrick already had her number on her chompers.

"Have you explained everything to him, Christopher?"

"Yep, I think we're good to go. Right, pal?" Leung hugged his son about the shoulders, and King instantly swore, if he ran across Rick in the future, never to call him 'pal' ever.

"Sure," Patrick shrugged, only raising his head to look at his father to ask a sincere question. "Is Mom here yet?"

"Not yet. She'll be here by the time you're through."

"I wanted to see her," Patrick whined softly, conceding in the same breath, "no big."

Patrick's moping and the silent exchange between Feliar and Leung gave him the willies. Why _wasn't_ the kid's mother around? Maybe because she might flip out if she knew her husband was still peddling her children as vampire juice-boxes. How the hell did Leung think he was going to get away with offing this kid, too?

Feliar rescued her underling. "Why don't you walk him over to see Dr. Autile?" Feliar smiled, her lips stretched over her teeth protectively. "Would you like that, Patrick? Your dad will be with you while they run the tests, and I'll have someone send your mom up when she arrives."

"Fine," Patrick muttered, eyes back on his hands resting in his lap.

Undaunted by his lack of enthusiasm, Feliar gestured towards the door. "Go on then. I'll catch up with you. I just need a word with Mr. King."

Leung nodded, Patrick's eyebrows went up on his forehead. _Mr._ King? He shrugged, impishly, resigned to it; if he and Rick ever had a contest for who was condescended more, he would win in a landslide. They left, the door shut behind them by yet another shaved yeti who didn't speak English so much as gargle it.

"What's the story?"

"Story?" Feliar blinked at him, coquettishly batting her eyelashes.

"I do something wrong?" He didn't much care for her security drones, but he thought of Mischa and cringed internally.

"No, no, nothing of the sort. I just wanted to tell you we'll be having a dinner guest tonight." Her eyes twinkled at his sharp inhalation. "Oh, _yes_, King, _that_ kind of dinner guest."

"Friend of yours?" First, that 'her' comment from earlier, now this. He wondered about Fox, then decided it didn't matter who she brought up to her suite. It was six and one half dozen of the other, and he didn't like it, especially not if she intended to include him in the feasting. He'd had enough of that lifestyle to make him physically ill at the thought of it.

"Obviously _not_," she cooed, stretching up to nuzzle him and scratch the underside of his chin. Playing along, he hugged her around the waist, pulling her closer. Without breaking the skin, she nipped at his jaw, placing kisses over the tiny bites to soothe him.

"So what's with the boy anyway?"

"I told you, forget about him."

"Is it 'take your kid to work' day again already?"

"Drop it, your highness."

He really ought to, but he couldn't let the bug riding his ass go. "Yeah, he seems like the type to follow in daddy's footsteps." Feliar raised an eyebrow, glaring sharply up at him. Instinct told him to shut up, so, of course, he kept going. "What? It could be a whole new style for you. I see fishnets, lime-green pumps and a sweater dress in your future, angel."

Feliar's laugh tinkled like broken glass, and her breath was cool on his ear as she leaned back into him.

"What did you think of him?"

"You said we weren't talking about this."  
"I changed my mind," she said while digging her nails into his shirtfront. That was vampire for 'be serious or be disemboweled.'

"He seems like a little shit. I liked him."

"Hmm," Feliar huffed her putrid breath over his neck, flicking out her tongue once to catch his Adam's apple. "People like him will inherit the earth. It seems almost laughable, doesn't it? I bet he doesn't even compare to those whom you've been privileged to meet of late."

"Yes, but the children are our future, cupcake." He sniffed the bait but refused her lure. She wanted to talk about Blade. He'd been vague about escaping Danica's thus far, sufficiently dropping not entirely unauthentic snide remarks about the hybrid asshole to convey his displeasure at having the former mistress of Phoenix Towers ashed against his will. And that was all she got.

"Not a very impressive specimen, regardless."

"Give him time, a haircut, and a blow job. His whole world will change. Promise."

"All right, enough." She pulled away from him, tapping one fingernail against her hip and looking him up and down. "Time to eat."

For all of a second, his stomach did flip-flops of joy; substantial meals, chocolate hotel mints and raids of the mini-bar not withstanding, hadn't featured into his stay so far. The gastrointestinal gold medal performance crashed and burned in a hurry when he realized this probably wasn't going to be a trip to McDonald's.

"Eat _what_?"

Her answering grin was toothy and enigmatic.


	21. Making a List, Checking it Twice

Stone arrived at the base shortly after sunset, after driving halfway to San Jose and back just to eliminate the threat of being followed. He barely looked at Blade, merely walked in, face clouded, eyes downcast, slamming the door behind him so loud that Abby was sure Zoe could have heard him in the basement. She groaned, inwardly; she didn't need his attitude now, too. Alyssa had been rabbitty since they'd returned, Blade's reappearance in her life a jarring reminder of things best forgotten. Fox had gotten herself abducted, King was still incommunicado, and Zoe was pissed at her.

The little girl had stamped her feet, pleaded with Blade to let her stay among the adults, to which he'd absolved himself of responsibility by pointing out he wasn't her father. Which Zoe then turned around on _her_, saying Abby wasn't her mother. Stricken but determined not to show it, Abby had pulled rank and banished a snuffling Zoe to the shooting range downstairs.

Away from the tantrum of a seven-year-old, they brought Blade up to speed. Currently, Alyssa was filling in the details about finding the Leung woman and her son. Abby snapped herself out of her depressive funk, prepared to elaborate if necessary.

"Abby found a hospital bracelet belonging to the older boy. He wasn't in the house."

"I got your numbers, by the way," Gidge called, present, as ever, only digitally through a secure video broadcast. "The bracelet numbers match hospital protocols for identification, and the date coincides with the emergency room visit the older kid had for his fainting spell a few months ago."

"Which was for anemia," Blade repeated, absorbing the information with his singular air of disbelief.

"Uh, yes, sir." Gidge was being absurdly polite and solicitous of the hybrid hunter; when she and Alyssa arrived, the two had been talking - _Gidge_ had been talking, quite effusively, and Blade merely suffering through the stream of consciousness - about his sword. Turns out Gidge knew a guy who knew the guy who made it, which was as close to cool as Gidge got, apparently.

"Why a Biomedica bracelet, Gidge?"

"He's got a medic alert tag."

Stone snorted derisively. "For a fucking _teenager_?"

"Mom is--_was_ protective," Gidge wagged a finger at Eli. "She lost too many kids to sudden deaths, Stone. I don't begrudge her a little medical paranoia." Under his breath, he muttered, "especially as she was right..."

"But why was _Biomedica_ tagging him, Gidge?" Caulder frowned, tugging at his whiskers. "They're a research firm, not an insurance company."

"Doesn't say. They're the first response agent listed on his charts, though." Gidge put a hand over his heart. "God bless digital medical records."

"They picked him up?"

"Yeah. They got him from his school, took him to the emergency room, and they've got a doctor on Biomedica's staff looking out for him. His name's attached to the orders for the blood work that came up with anemia."

Blade, who until that point had been silent, interrupted the pointless, circling Q-and-A.

"If the doctor is on their payroll, the lab results will be fake."

"Then why wait so long?" All heads turned towards Alyssa, who, for the first time, met Blade's gaze through his sunglasses. "They've taken all the other children as infants. Why wait on this one?"

"Hormones," Blade intoned humorlessly, and Alyssa's defiance crumbled into horror once more. "It has to do with physiology."

"Ugh," Gidge stuck his tongue out. "Gross. They want to eat him because he's going through puberty? If ever I needed _more_ proof vampires are bunch of sick fuckers…"

"It makes sense," Abby shrugged. "Most of their abductees tend to be lured through sex." Vampire prostitutes taking in Johns; feeding groups luring unsuspecting happy-go-lucky partiers into vampire clubs; Danica allowing King to take her home; most victims went willingly and more than a little aroused. Better flavor.

"Which means your partner might be in trouble there, Whistler," Stone grumped.

She ignored Blade's amused grin at this pronouncement, refusing to allow the conversation to veer any more off topic.

"What about the note?"

"Oh, right," Alyssa fished the flimsy piece of paper from her handbag and passed it around for the others to read. Blade scrutinized it silently for a long while and handed it to Stone who did a double-take.

"Isaac?"

"That mean something to you, Eli?"

"The guy I was following today was named Isaac. Isaac Hobbes."

"A familiar?" Blade's interested tone was tinged with dark intent.

"Yeah, he's been fishing for his master's food. They're taking women out of the bay. Boarders of all types, pretty healthy stock. Damn," he swore, crumpling the note in his fist. "I forgot. I think I might know where our plant is."

"Plant?" Blade's sneer deepened. "Another 'harvest facility.'"

"We think so," Abby mitigated, looking at Caulder and Gidge. They'd had a chance to scrutinize the plans better than she had.

"There are some differences," Gidge admitted reluctantly. "This one doesn't seem to be as big as the one you guys described before. But," he added, his attempt at cheer coming out as pathetic, naive optimism, "I might have the address."

"The SUV that picked up Hobbes had a plate that matched to an address in Marin County. It's a long shot, but it might just be where they're stashing the bodies."

"Then that's where we go." Blade stepped back from the table and went for the door.

"Wait," she barked, stern and angry. "Wait a goddamned minute, Blade." The vampire hunter didn't turn around, though he stopped. She had precisely ten seconds to justify that command, and she didn't waste them. "We're spread out way too thin here, and the vampires know that we're around. This isn't like last time. We need a plan."

"Plans," Blade snarled, cocking his head to show off his impressively sharp teeth, "won't get rid of the vampires."

"Nor will wandering around half in the dark. Something's not right here." Deja vu, she shivered. The last time she'd felt so out of place, three of her friends had died. "We have two leads right now. One is the familiar, and two is an address. The address and the building that belongs to it aren't going anywhere. I say we talk to Hobbes and make sure what we're storming before we do."

"You think this is a trap," Blade rumbled. His attitude shifted, the resistance fading into wary belief as he about-faced and walked back to the table.

"I'm not sure what it is," she confessed. "But we're down two people and I don't want to go out hunting in the dark and find the vampires waiting for us because Fox told them."

"She wouldn't!" Stone banged his fist onto the table. "She hates that woman like you wouldn't believe. She'd die first."

"Fine, whatever," Abby brushed off his outcry; they didn't have time for his guilty defense of his missing partner. "Where is Fox, Gidge?"

"I can't give you floors, mind, but her signal's right on top of your partner's, Whistler. She's at the Ritz, probably with the vampire."

"She's alive then."

"Yeah, so's he, if you were wondering." She hadn't been and was unaffected by Gidge's reproach. King was competent enough to look out for himself, he knew the game, and he had a fool's luck. His chances were better than Fox's for sure.

"So what do we do?" Eli groused, looking at the table but directing the question at her.

"We talk to Hobbes," she declared confidently. Alyssa and Caulder shared a worried, whispered exchange, and Eli raised an eyebrow, but no one challenged her. "He might know more about the plant and the conference. And if we're blown, it can't hurt to take out the human support for this conference anyway."

"I'm in for some of that," Stone said, leaning back in his chair and cracking his knuckles. "I got no problems putting the hurt on Hobbes. Or anyone else for that matter."

"Where should we pick him up?"

"We could try the mooring where he docks his boat. He left it when he hauled off his latest. He probably won't move it until after dark. If not, Gidge has his address from his license."

"You bet," Gidge affirmed. "If you can't find him, I could put out a hit on the SUV and monitor police frequencies."

"Right. We'll get something from him, and we'll make plans from there."

"And what about Henri and I?" Alyssa asked, folding her arms over her chest.

"I want you to work over the conference hall blueprints with Gidge. Gidge, you hear me?"

"Roger, boss lady. I'm on that, too."

"We'll need to know all the entrances and exits, public, private, maintenance, emergency, everything."

"I'll focus on possible delivery routes for Daystar," Alyssa nodded, agreeing. "Gidge, you map security choke points."

"Yep."

"Caulder."

"Yes?"

"You've got Daystar detail from here until Thursday."

"We might have a problem."

"Why?"

Caulder sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I've been replicating the virus, but I don't know if there will be enough for more than a handful of vampires. I lost a significant amount in my last purification round."

Stone swore something long and complicated in Spanish, Alyssa gasped, Gidge buried his head in his arms, and even Blade raised an eyebrow.

"How much did you lose?"

"Enough," Caulder shook his head, not bothering to go into details that none of them would understand. "And Fox and I were using half of what I had before that to work on alternative vectors for delivery. I can't use what she altered."

"Why not?"

"I don't know if it's safe, for one, and it might not work at all. Better to stick to what I know."

This was a problem, and it was one she couldn't fix. Amounts of virus weren't calculations she made, but they were ones she relied upon. The changes and mutations that made them virulent or harmless were completely out of her realm of knowledge. This sort of thing she had trusted Sommer to figure out, and Sommer, as if she had to keep reminding herself, was dead.

"Is there something wrong with your stock?"

"Not as far as I can tell, but it's possible that the virus is unstable outside of a host. It may break down over time in stasis. I'm not a virologist like Sommerfield. There may be something I'm missing."

Damnit, that was a _serious_ problem. "Keep on it. If we can't use it at the conference, we'll stick to silver and garlic."

"Don't forget EDTA." Blade produced a vial from his coat. It was in a blue container attached to a gas-depression projectile dart. He tossed it to Caulder.

"Yes," Caulder said, absently, fingering the weapon.

"What's that?" Stone asked.

"EDTA," Abby explained, "is part of the treatment we use when we cure someone. You can only give a small amount of it to someone who's been bitten because it's explosive when it reacts to vampire blood. But the retro-virus we use in the cure works better and faster in EDTA. It slows down and destroys vampire blood outright while the virus works to rescue human cells."

"So, a reverse Daystar."

She smiled. "Of course. That's where we got the idea." She looked at the dart in Caulder's hands and then at Blade. "Those might come in handy. You have any more?"

"Not many. EDTA is harder to come by than silver."

That was true. Their own supplies had always come through Sommerfield. EDTA had to be ordered through supply companies - there just wasn't a black market for biological chemicals that had no application for terrorist activity. Nitroglycerin you could get off the back of the truck, but an anti-coagulant? Hardly anywhere. It was why they didn't use it as a weapon. Just too many hoops to jump through, unless they wanted to raid Sigma-Aldrich.

"We'll have to plan on a fight at the conference then." Not a big deal. They'd already have to fight the familiars.

"What about the vampires arriving at SFO?" Alyssa threw down a list of chartered flights. "It's risky to try anything at an airport, but if we're moving in the open now, we could just hit a lot of them there."

"It's a question of timing," she said, frowning. "It's easier to hit them all at once."

"More dangerous, too." Stone shrugged. "We either hit them individually and face increased resistance with each target and maybe miss a few but get each one we go after..."

"Or we hit them all at once and maybe get killed doing it," she finished for him. "Yeah, I know. If Daystar has even a chance of working, we have to do it at the conference."

"There's the welcome dinner Thursday night," Alyssa read off the itinerary. "Leung is supposed to make a toast and it's a private party thrown by Biomedica for their shareholders and guests. The doctors and academics will be out of the way, so minimal human casualties. That's our best time."

"Agreed. The lower the body count, the better."

"Did King say what kind of familiars we'd be running into?"

Gidge answered before she could. "Big fellas, mostly. We know vampires tend to attract all sorts, but he said it looked like they were making an effort to have meatheads on staff."

Blade grunted derisively at this, unimpressed. "The bigger they are."

"We'll need to confirm the type of security the vampires bring with them. You wanted to check out the arrivals, so. Alyssa, you head to SFO tomorrow unless things change."

Over the stunted protest of her husband, Alyssa said, firmly, "Okay." She flashed Caulder a sympathetic look. She wasn't keen on sending Alyssa into danger either, but she had a cool head and a proficiency for deception and espionage. Besides, there was no one else.

Still, she admonished Alyssa, "You watch them, who gets off the plane and how many, but you _do not_ make contact."

"I'll get her some tickets," Gidge offered, disappearing from the video connection to do that.

"We're set then. Let me get my gear, and we'll head out. See if we can't find Stone's familiar."

"Fox's familiar," he corrected her as he rose to retrieve his own weapons.

"Speaking of, what about Fox?" Gidge reminded them.

"Keep an eye on her tracker and King's. Notify us if either one of them moves away from the Ritz and follow the signal the whole way."

"You got it."

Stone emerged from his room, tucking two .45 caliber handguns into holsters at the back of his pants. A machete in a leather pouch was in his hand; he sat back at the table and proceeded to strap it around his calf over his pant leg. When he was finished, he patted the sheath lovingly.

"Give me five," she told him and headed for her room.

It was there she ran into a snag. While King's favorites were hanging up still in his abandoned thigh holsters, all she had was the crossbow and Lucky No.7. King's pistols were too bulky, and the rest of her weapons, including her bow, were down in the garage near the practice targets.

Where Zoe was.

But, the choice between confronting an angry little girl and going underarmed to a fight wasn't, in the end, a hard one. Mind made up, Abby spun on her heel and nearly collided with Blade, who stood just inside her doorway.

"You need a bell," she pointed a finger at him.

"You sound like your partner." His head turn left, then right, then back to her. "Got rid of him, finally." It was not a question. Blade might not be the type to show any concern normally, but she could make out a distinct absence of any type of distress over King's absence.

"He's undercover. He's in tight with the vampire we think is behind this."

"Good," he said with the same detachment, maybe even relief. If he thought one way or another about finding King's things conspicuously occupying space in a bedroom with her own, he made no comment, merely left as stealthily as he came. Abby followed as far as the stairs, descending to the garage level.

She heard the thick _thwaps_ of a bowstring snapping and the dry impact of arrows. Zoe stood in the classic pose, her right hand holding back the considerable tensile strength of the bowstring around the butt of an arrow. She loosed it, her form perfect if not her aim; her elbow remained bent as she let fly her arrow, which buried into the outermost red of a target.

"Not bad," Abby announced herself. Zoe dropped her arm but did not otherwise acknowledge her. "Zoe?"

"Why won't you let me help?" The words were free of any trembling or doubt or anger. When she faced Abby at last, Zoe's face had resumed its singular expression of general intensity.

"You're not ready yet. _Yet_," she repeated, sitting on the bottom step, balancing her elbows on her thighs. "You might as well get used to this now, Zoe," she began, taking a deep breath. "People are going to tell you every step of the way that you're not ready." Hell, Blade had said as much to _her_ not a month ago. "And you're not always going to be sure if you are ready or not." Some days, she still wasn't sure.

"When do you know?" Zoe betrayed neither pout of impatience nor flare of temper.

"You might not ever know," Abby answered honestly. "Your best bet is to listen to others with more experience. If they said you're not ready, you're not."

"What if they're just trying to protect me?" _What if they're just trying to keep me away?_ That was the real question.

"Then you prove it." Abby cast a pointed glance at the arrows embedded in the target. Two had missed, three were in the white closest to the outside, and the last was in the red. "And you're going to have to do better than that to prove it to _me_."

Abby stood, dusting off her pants needlessly. Zoe regarded her with her lower lip trembling, which she bit to keep it still. It reminded Abby so much of herself her heart ached.

Zoe nodded to herself, as if having come to a decision. She walked to the wall and took down Abby's bow and quiver, bringing them over. Abby held out her hands, and Zoe pushed them towards her, not meeting her eyes. Batting the offering gently aside, Abby pulled the girl into a hug.

"This is the way it has to be, Zoe." She released her when it was clear the girl wasn't going to hug her back. "If you want in, it has to be like this. You won't always like it, but that's life."

Zoe raised her head. "I want in." She pursed her lips again, so hard they went white. "I want to kill anyone who hurts people."

"Not just anyone, Zoe. Vampires. Familiars. _Bad_ people." Abby corrected, inanely, too stunned to immediately take in the import of what she had said. A seven-year-old girl wanted to kill. This was the future?

Her shock must have shown because suddenly Zoe was in her arms again, thumping her in the back with her gear as she clung to Abby.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered into Abby's chest.

"For what?"

"For what I said."

"Upstairs?" Zoe nodded against her, and Abby hugged her, hard. "Don't be. I'm _not_ your mother, Zoe." It would be a discredit to Sommer for Zoe to forget that.

"You're my friend," Zoe said, rubbing her face into the front of Abby's shirt. "Mommy said you shouldn't be short with your friends."

"It's okay. Friends forgive you," Abby reassured her, patting her back. Zoe looked up at her, and Abby extended one hand. "Friends?" Zoe shifted the bow along her arm to shake her hand.

"Friends," she nodded and stood back, again offering the weapons. Abby took them, her mouth relaxing into a dazed half-grin. "Kill the bad guys, Abby."

"You got it."


	22. Catching Up with Old Friends

King hadn't needed to practice a facade of surprise and alarm upon seeing Fox when Feliar let them into the penthouse after dinner. He'd been expecting to see the other Nightstalker thoroughly battered, possibly unconscious, not sitting without any restraints on the freshly made bed in Feliar's suite. There _were_ guards on either side of her, neither of whom he recognized. The worst punishment he could identify a black eye that didn't look fresh and a split lip that did. Some people had all the luck when it came to being tortured.

Fox glowered at Feliar as they entered.

"_Alexandra_!" Feliar shrieked, delighted, and released his arm to run over to her and hug her. Fox remained rigid, eyes flashing, not accepting the hug but not resisting it. She met his eyes, and he struggled to find the right balance between staring at her too much and not enough while Feliar's back was turned. Fox gave him nothing, no meaningful flicker of her eyelid or lip, no code, no hint as to how to proceed. So, he played dumb; he had lots of practice.

Feliar stepped back, looking Fox over. "It has been too long."

"You should have called," Fox hissed through her teeth. "If I'd known you were here, I would have come sooner." Feliar retreated from her with a fluttery laugh.

"I've been so _busy_. I really am sorry about that." She linked her arm through his again and propelled him forward with her. "You see, I've got so many responsibilities now."

"Destroying lives? You used to manage that just fine back in New Mexico, _whore_," Fox spat, accurately launching bloody mucous onto Feliar's shoe. Unperturbed, Feliar removed sling-back heel with one finger, and turned the pump towards her face. King couldn't keep from making a face as she licked the leather clean.

"Mmm, yum. Very spicy, Alex." She slid her shoe back on, leaning heavily against him as she did. "Oh, where are my manners? Alex, darling, this is Hannibal King. King, this is Alexandra Fox, a very dear old acquaintance from the dark ages."

"It was ten years, six months, and eighteen days ago," Fox corrected her. Her rabid, almost predatory enthusiasm burned in her dark eyes.

"You always did have a good memory," Feliar complemented her.

"You were worth remembering, Feliar."

"_Feliar_! Oh, oh, _oh_!" Feliar erupted into giggles, punching him too hard in the arm as she recovered herself. "I haven't heard that name in _ages_, Alex, dear." She looked up at King, and he feigned frightened confusion. "Feliar was supposed to be my big-bad vampire name. Really!" She said, trying to convince him, needlessly. "I though you had to have some sort of funny name, like my master did, if you wanted to be a vampire."

"I have a funny name, and I'm still human."

She patted his cheek. "Oh, but there's still time for you, sweetness." Shaking her head and turning back to Fox, she sighed to herself, "_Feliar,_ oh that takes me back." To Fox, she said, "I still go by Filia, sometimes. Or Fiona. It depends on the capacity. For this," she waved a hand at their surroundings, I'm Filia because I'm only running my sire's show."

"Still not in charge, are you?" Fox smirked.

"He's in charge," Feliar conceded, "in name only. He wouldn't have the first clue about setting this up. It's his money, my project."

"And what's that?"

Feliar tut-tutted. "Now, now, Alex, that would be giving it away. You have to wait for our dinner, Thursday."

"I didn't expect to live that long."

Feliar pouted like a little girl. "Alex, you _wound_ me."

"Step closer, I'll see what I can do." Fox leaned forward on the bed, and two meaty hands came down on her slight shoulders at once. Feliar reached out and mussed her hair, clucking her tongue.

"There, there, Alex. Plenty of time for that. You know me. I like to _play_."

"_Games_," Fox sneered, jerking her head away as best she could while held in place by the two giant familiars.

"Yes," Feliar agreed, pinching her cheek then darting away when Fox turned her head to snap at her. "Ah-ah," she wagged an accusatory finger at her captive. "Not nice. And you don't have the teeth for it, my dear." Feliar flashed hers as if to prove it. She danced away, skipping like an over-enthused child and hugging him with a tackle from behind, which nearly knocked him to his knees.

"Easy there, tiger," he stuttered, adrenaline rising. That had felt a little _too_ rough for play. Vampires liked it rough as far as he knew them-and he flattered himself he knew them pretty well-but they knew the limits of their toys. She wouldn't have hit him so hard unless she'd meant to.

"I wouldn't hurt you, my pet. I haven't hurt Fox, have I?"

"No," Fox agreed, grinning unnaturally. "You didn't."

Women's smiles were another passion of his, something he could read backwards and forwards. Fox's expressions invariably were possessed by madness, but _this_ one had a little something else to it: victory. Warning. Warning. Danger Will Robinson.

_Bam_.

A microsecond before he was ready, Feliar's kick caught him behind the knees, collapsing his legs out from under him. He caught himself as he fell, ready to roll and fight. He understood instinctually and instantly that he was blown. The how, the why would have to wait until later, when he was safe. Midway through his tuck, Feliar caught his chin in one hand. He bowed, ready to toss her over his shoulder when he got a vicious kick in the nether regions that robbed him of breath. With Feliar on top of his back, he fell straight to the floor, gasping.

It was over before he could break free. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. Trapped with a vampire and goons twice his size. Still trying, vainly, to struggle free, he got his knee up under him, rising.

"No good, lover," Feliar whispered in his ear.

And then, he felt it. Liquid cold flowed from his neck through his body, like a reverse vampire bite-instead of heat leaving him, frosty numbness was spreading into him. He threw one hand up, wildly, trying to knock away whatever it was at his neck, expecting to come in contact with Feliar's face. The backs of his fingers hit something plastic, and he felt something rip free from his neck.

Then he was falling, barely feeling the carpet that rose up to smack him full in the face. A rough shove tossed his unresponsive body over, so he could swoon on his back. Feliar stood above him, digging her heel into his sternum. Never one to admit defeat, he brought up an arm to knock her off only to have it stepped on before it got an inch off the floor.

By Fox.

Seeing his recognition, Feliar grinned toothily at him. "King, I want you to meet an old _friend_ of mine. Alex, this is King."

Fox had stopped smiling. "We've met."

"So I hear," Feliar patted her arm. "Thank you for this, Alex. Really. He'll do quite nicely." She was swimming out of focus, and she seemed to realize this. She bent closer to him, brushing her hands over his cheeks. "Poor baby."

He couldn't feel that, but he could still smell her. Fuck it, then. "Listerine, sweetcheeks. Look into it. Buy stock." His tongue died, unresponsive in his mouth after that.

She scooped to retrieve the plastic thing, a syringe. "Neurotoxin, care of the good doctors up north." The missing doctors--it made sense. Feliar shook her head. "And you thought you could play me. _Me_." She dropped the syringe and leaned over him to his ear. He felt some pressure on his earlobe, and when she pulled back she held his earring between her thumb and forefinger. The bloody, gory lump sickened him, but not as much as her licking it clean of his blood. He hadn't even felt her rip it out.

"Don't need to talk to Fox any more, do we?" She crushed the earring and clawed at his throat, catching his necklace and tossing it carelessly over her shoulder. "I never liked my pets in costume jewelry." Her hand moved out of sight, and he managed to tilt his head to the side in order to see that she was pulling on his pants, running her nails over the tattoo on his stomach and grinning at Fox. "He's a slave."

Fox bent to get a closer look, her expression cold and clinical. He tried to buck his hips, avoid this final indignity, but his body wasn't listening to his brain. "I never learned to read these glyphs."

"Not that you need to. It only says the name of his master-his _deceased_ master." Feliar leaned away to pinch his cheek. "You're a _slave_, King. You people," she sighed, sorely crossed. To Fox, she explained, "Humans may know what glyphs _mean_, but they never stop to think about _placement_. And it's _so_ elementary!"

"That matters?" Fox got to her knees on the other side of his head, holding him in place. He managed to throw his head to the side, but she brought it back, wrenching his eyelids open. "He's not completely under yet."

"Not a problem. He's not going anywhere." Feliar rolled up her blouse sleeve, exposing the mark on her wrist. "Placement, Alex, dear, is _everything._ My master marked me here. That gives me access to his secure holdings. Ronald," she ordered. A vague, black blur moved into what had been fuzzy white space. "Ronald is one of my front men, see?"

"On the hand, I get it." She poked at his eyelids again. By now, he couldn't even roll his head away from her.

_Ronald_, he fought to hold onto that. Ronald, the front man, on the hand. Him, the slave, on the stomach. Placement, important...

"My little King, here, he's a slave. If he'd thought about it, he wouldn't have tried to fool me, would you, King?"

The rest was lost, and so was he. Abby was going to kill him. He clung to that as a source of relief as he went under.


End file.
